


Autocorrect

by PaperHatCollection



Category: Video Blogging RPF, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Abuse, M/M, Rewrite, Soulmates AU, and healthy relationships take time and effort, not every soulmate is romantic au, seriously there are like 8 types of love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-29 10:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17806694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperHatCollection/pseuds/PaperHatCollection
Summary: Bing likes when he can be helpful, in any way he can.The Author likes when people do as he tells them too.There just might be something here.





	1. Enter the Muse

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't in the best place when I first began writing this fic, but now that I'm doing better I wanna rewrite and reupload it, as this story means alot to me. While the first and second chapters follow closely to the way I wrote them the first time around, they are 100% worth rereading do to the changes I DID add. Especially considering this first chapter is twice as long as it originally was.

Bing.

Was.

 _Booooored_.

It was really unfair, in his experience, that he _even_ _could_ feel ‘bored’ in the first place. He liked his emotions, he really did, but sometimes it _sucked_ to feel junk. Logically, he knew _why_ he felt boredom- he could be doing something, _anything_ right now, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even waiting on orders, or on standby, he was just wasting time. He also knew if he did _literally anything_ right now it’s be about a million times more fun than just sitting here alone, it was just- _ugh_.

There was nothing going on that he _wanted_ to do by himself, which just double-sucked. See, he was _supposed_ to be hanging out with Chace and King today, but Brody had ‘family’ problems again King needed to tend to a territory dispute between his subjects further in the forest. He’d even considered getting extra work done, but there was nothing he needed to _do,_ and no one who needed his help right now. Even the Googles, who were _always_ busy with one project or another, hadn’t needed his help.

That was where he was now- in the back of the Google’s workshop, sitting on the edge of a spare table as he watched the other four androids cross the room back and forth, tinkering and adjusting machines connected together through a cobweb of wires and cables. It all looked a little overly complicated and Bing was kinda sure it had something to do with their Secondary Adjective. Bing never asked for details- he couldn’t say he even believed they’d ever be able to achieve it. Mostly he just went out and bought spare parts when they needed it. But right now they had all the parts they could ever need.

Bing sighed, considering where else he could go. In the back of his mind he was playing a game of tetris, but… well, when ones mind was literally a computer with access to the internet, ‘playing’ these games wasn’t exactly… hard. Long story short, Bing was basically cheating at every game he played unless he deliberately messed up. He did that as he watched the Gamma, the green shirted Google unit pull out faulty wires from the side of a CPU and replace them with color coded ones. In Bing’s internal game of tetris, Bing turned a Z piece sideways and shoved it onto a spot perfectly shaped for an upside down L block, which disrupted his pattern in a way that would take him at least six pieces to recover from, judging by the ones that were coming up next.

The game closed. Bing would like to think of it as rage quiting do to a mistake, rather than the simple truth. Maybe it was time to find something else to do- he connected to youtube and flipped through the latest batch of videos, searching for something interesting. Apparently his binge of parkour videos last night had confused the youtube algorithms into thinking that was all he wanted to watch- but then again, what didn’t seem to confuse youtube these days? Although… Bing found a video of someone doing ‘skateboard parkour’ which… man, that guy was good. You know, maybe a trip to the park was a great chance to practice-

The door  to the workshop flew open with all the force of a teenage girl hellbent on finding someone to help her hack into her senpai’s computer. And Bing knew that because shortly after throwing open the doors and darting in, Yan asked “Hi Googly oogles~ Can one of you guys come help me hack into my Senpai’s computer…. Pleeeease?” while batting her eyelashes and rocking back and forth on her heels, trying to look the picture of innocence. Having seen this girl soaked in blood while charging towards her latest ‘rival’ with a steak knife, this attempt failed.

“No.” Google- the one in the blue shirt said, not looking up from the laptop he was using. Bing found that part confusing- what exactly where they doing that required Google to use a _laptop_ instead of his internal processors? And knowing Google, he wouldn’t think of so much as _touching_ a laptop, which he considered an inferior piece of technology, unless he _needed_ to or doing otherwise put him at risk of breaking something internal.

“Aw,” Yan pouted, lowering her head slightly and bringing her shoulders forward to appear smaller, clapping her hands together in front  of her chest. “Can’t you at least consider it? _Pweese?_ I _need_ to get this- and it’s not like I ever ask you for stuff all the time!”

“No,” this time it was Gamma who said it, who seemed to be in the middle of taking the CPU completely apart. “Because normally you sneak in here while we aren't looking and steal whatever you want. We still want that handsaw back, by the way.”

Yan seemed to abandon the idea of looking cute to get what she wanted, stomping her foot and crossing her arms with an annoyed sounding ‘Hmmp!’. “Well- maybe I’ll only give it back if you guys come help me!”

“No, than you’ll think stealing our stuff is a valid way to blackmail us!” Red said from the back of the room, who was- you know what, you could figure out which one Red was. He looked up to send Yan a look of ‘Don’t you even think about it’. “You’ll give the handsaw back regardless, otherwise we’ll cut off the wifi to your phone.”

“No _fair!”_ Yan whined, while shrugging the backpack off her shoulders. It was designed to look like a kitty cat and was a deep red perfect for hiding blood stains. She flipped open the top, digging around inside as stuff clattered in a way that definitely wasn’t schoolwork, before pulling out the handsaw. Which was covered in blood, of course. “You know, I _was_ gonna clean it first before sneaking it back in here. You wouldn’t have even noticed it was gone.”

“No, we definitely would have.” Oliver said as he stepped forward and took the saw back. By the process of elimination, it was fairly clear that Oliver was the Google in yellow. And also the cutest. “You _do_ know there are cameras in here, right? And we’re connected to those cameras at all times?”

Yan looked like she had not known that.

“Oh…” She sagged in defeat, fiddling with the straps of her backpack. Bing, who had been collecting the spare skateboard he kept in the workshop for reasons the Googles didn’t need to know about, glanced up at that moment in time to catch the full force of sad, defeated looking Yan. And dang it if he was programed to be a bit of a sap- leftover code from when he was intended to ensure his ‘owner’ had their every need met, he bet.

“Yan?” Bing called softly, spinning one of the wheels on his skateboard. “I think there’s someone you forgot to ask.”

Yan glanced up, first surprised, than confused, than realization finally dawned on her. “Bee?” she began, defaulting to nicknames as she went back to looking cute, smiling and swaying her hips slightly as she held her backpack close to her heart. “Will _you_ help me hack into Senpai’s computer?” she asked.

“Yes.” Bing answered.

“YES!” Yan squealed, dropping her bag and darting at Bing to throw her arms around him in what was both a hug and effective tackle, which would have shoved Bing to the ground if he hadn’t had the table behind him to lean on. “You’re the BEST Bing!” Yan giggled, squeezing him in a way that would have made a human struggle to breath.

“Yeah, I am the best, aren't I?” Bing asked, grinning and glancing at the Google’s, rising an eyebrow from behind his shades.

“Hey Bing,” Gamma called over. “Remember that time you forgot what ice was and kept insisting it ‘water rocks’?”

Bing groaned, while Yan giggled. She’d been there for part of that night, come to think of it. “You know my battery was _super_ low when that happened, and also, clearly you guys just aren't on my level.” he pulled open a scientific article from the internet, projecting it in front of him and pointing at it. “Boom.”

“That article is about glacier ice being qualified as a mono-mineralic rock, which is a different subject altogether.” Google said without bothering to look up at the article. “Isn't it?”

“Glacier ice, tap water ice… Tomado, solanum tuberosum.” Bing countered.

“Huh?” Yan asked, leaning back to look at him in confusion.

Bing shrugged, guiding her back towards the door. “Oh, no big deal. So, any reason you want me to hack, erm… your ‘senpais’ computer? Anything you want me to be on the lookout for?” he asked, picking up her backpack as they passed so he could hand it back to her. Bing had to admit- the backpack was heavier than  it looked. He was kinda surprised Yan could carry it around so easily- guess she was stronger than he looked. He didn’t ask what was in the bag as he handed it back. “Or did you want me to put something _into_ his computer?” he asked, not missing a beat in the conversation.

“Both.” Yan said, eyes glittering. How’s she do that- “I’ll explain on the way there~”

On the way… there?

Well… Bing wanted to go outsides anyways.

 

\-----

 

“So, while you’re busy setting up the rocket, you’ve got to keep an ear out for an owl’s hoot. One hoot you’re fine- but _two_ hoots mean you need to abandon the rocket and grab the rock. Assuming we get away with setting off the firework rocket, you need to immediately sneak towards the back of the house.”

“Yan?”

“THAN I’ll be able to drop of the roof using the rain drain to slid down. You’ll probably need to be waiting at the bottom to catch me in case it breaks, and I’ll be careful not to hit you over the head with the crowbar.”

“Yan?”

“We’ve got to keep in mind the wind speed when we set off the rocket- oh, and for plan B, you’ll want to use that rock too-

“Yan?”

Yan glanced up from the paper she was drawing her elaborate plan on. She seemed startled, and Bing genuinely didn’t believe she’d heard him trying to get a word in the last five minutes. Yan cleared her throat, pulling the paper off her leg as she tried to smooth it out. “Yeah?”

Bing slipped out from the bushes they were hiding behind, walked past the empty driveway towards the front door, grabbed the handle, and opened the door. He turned back to where Yan was still hiding, gesturing for her to hurry inside before anyone saw them. Yan darted past into the house, and it was only when Bing stepped in behind her and closed the door that he explained. “The locks electronic, and it connects to bluetooth. I just turned off the alarms and unlocked it.”

“Oooooh~” Yan was bouncing on the balls of her feet, squishing the sides of her face with her hands. “That’s _way_ simpler, thanks Bing!” She glanced around with even more sparkles in her eyes than before, which was surprising. Knowing Yan, you’d think she’d have broken into her senpais house at least once before. “Oh! This is amazing! I can’t believe I’m really sanding in the SAME room my senpai has lived in!” she squealed, running into the living room so she could throw herself on the nearest couch.

“Yeah… um, how long did you say they’d be away again?” Bing asked, trailing behind Yan while being a lot more careful about not touching anything. “You know I could have accessed the computer from anywhere, right? We don’t need to actually grab the physical laptop to use it.”

“Oh pish posh.” Yan waved him off, springing to her feet so that she could steal a small framed photo of a boy from the mantle of the (nonfunctional by the looks of it) fireplace and shove it into a side pocket of her backpack. “And don’t you worry about it Bingy-boy, the whole family’ll be gone all day. I made sure of it.”

“Right.” Bing muttered. He didn’t ask what she meant. Mostly he just followed her from room to room, where she nicked small objects to stuff into her bag. Some of the things seemed weirder than others- especially the toothbrush she intified as her senpai’s from his twitter selfies, which she then licked. While they walked, Bing connected back to the house, searching for and finding all personal computers, than locating which one belonged to her senpai.

“You’re ‘senpai’s name is… er, what’s your senpais name, Yan?” Bing asked, mentally staring at the name attached to the laptop he believed to belong to Yans crush.

“Oh!” Yan’s eyes practically sparkled as she searched through a hall closet for the towel she’d seen her senpai use in another selfie. Bing suddenly felt like he’d opened the floodgates. “His name is Morgan! My soulmate! He’s just… the _best_ person I’ve ever met. So charming and kind, and he’s got just the _cutest_ glaces that from his eyes. His hair is so fluffy too, I just wanna run my fingers through it, and- and-  He _loves_ video games and manga and writing- we’re in the same literature club, you know. His writing is just…” Yan sighed, nearly melting on the spot. “Oh, I could read his writing for _days~_ I’ve collected _all_ his old poems from our past meetings~”

“Did you know he can cook? Sometimes he brings stuff to school that he made himself. Last week he brought in a tray of the _best_ baked potatoes he’d ever made, and before that he brought in this dish called a zucchini and potato bake, and once he even made pancakes out of potatoes!” she giggled, tilting her head to the side as she grabbed a towel against the side of her face. “He even grows his own potatoes in a garden out back- I wanna pick one before we go, okay?”

Bing nodded, finally accessing the computer and Morgan’s social media accounts. Apparently… ‘Morp’ was a nickname he used online a lot. There was probably a story behind it. Bing didn’t risk asking Yan anymore questions about him. Instead, he tried to keep things on track. “So, I’m in his computer…”

Yan gasped, tying the towel around her waist. “Really? Already?” she asked, darting towards the back of the house, where the computer was located. And, by correlation, Morp’s room. And ignoring the fact he couldn’t seem to stop calling Morp ‘Morp’, Bing continued to follow her. By the time he’d gotten there, she’d already thrown herself into the bed, rolling around in the sheets and continuing to giggle to herself.

Bing took a chance to look around. Yan’s description of Morp’s interests were… well, accurate was a good word for it. The room was covered in video game figurines and trinkets, with even the sheets Yan was rolling herself up in being themed after a pokeball. There were posters of anime characters all over the walls, which Bing could've looked up the shows for and learned the names but deliberately did not. Added to that was the general mess of a boys room, with a messy floor and all, but a surprisingly large percentage of it was crumpled up pieces of papers, alongside random notebooks thrown about. Scratch that- the most surprising fact about this scene was that Yan wasn’t just shoveling everything into her backpack.

As he was turned to look around the room, Bing spotted the photos. They’d been tapped directly onto the wall, above the desk and between a bunch of posters. He stepped closer- there was Morp in all his glory, among photos of him and who Bing could presume were his friends. He only saw Yan in one photo that looked like a group shot of the whole literature club, and they weren't even standing close. Spotting something odd, Bing leaned closer to the photos to try and make out the writing on Morp’s arm. Man, he wished he had that television power of screaming at photos to enhance their quality.

“Hey, Yan?” Bing began, hoping he wouldn’t regret this. “Have you… _talked_ to Morp about being his soulmate?” Bing asked, keeping his words soft and (hopefully) non threatening.

Yan kicked off the blanket, holding out her arm in pride. “Not in person, no. He wants to keep our relationship a _secret~_ for now, but we talk _allllllll_ the time.” she explained, tracing cursive, beautiful letters that wound up and down her arms like vines. Another set of handwriting, that Bing identified as Yan’s own, also crossed her arm in red writing. Bing glanced back at the photos, where Morp’s arms were visible. Two sets of handwriting were on his arm- one was written in purple, simple handwriting, while the other looked like someone had stamped words onto his arm with a pink ink stamp. Neither of them resembled the writing on Yan’s arm. Bing cleared his throat and showed Yan the photo.

“Oh! That’s just fake. He probably put that there so no one got suspicious why we’re the only two people that never show off their soul words in the club.” Yan explained, grabbing the photo from Bing to carefully fold it and slip into her pocket. “I can’t _wait_ to see the looks on everyone’s faces when we get married~ They’re gonna be _so_ jealous, but they _can’t have him,_ because he’s mine and _I’m_ the only one who could possibly love him!”

“Oh… okay, Yan.” Bing said. He wasn’t about to get hacked to pieces by pushing this too far, nor mention that the majority of soulmates were not in fact romantically inclined. In fact, attempting to force a romance was one of the leading causes in destroying the bond between two soulmates- Bing happened to know that Chase could speak about that from experience. “So… computer?”

“Right!” Yan jumped off the bed, skipping over to the desk while Bing opened up the laptop. “Okay, so did you install all the thingamajigs?” she asked, plopping down in Morp’s chair and pulling a flashdrive out over her pocket.

“Yep.” Bing said, leaning over her shoulders and watching as she plugged the flash drive into the usb port. He began the download - pictures mostly, alongside some info Yan was interested in, and a history of his chat messages. Yan could have fun looking through those. “Alright, done.”

“Aw, thanks Bing~” Yan said, before turning in the chair to give Bing a kiss on his cheek.. “I’ll remember you’ve done this little favor for me, okay?” she asked, winking before sliding out of the chair, scooping papers and trash off the floor into her backpack, and climbing over Morp’s bed to unlock Morp’s bedroom window and slip into the backyard. Bing watched her go, feeling his face heat up slowly as he rubbed as his cheek. Yan reappeared at the window a moment later, pulling Bing’s skateboard out of her backpack to drop on Morp’s bed, winked, and disappeared again.

Alright… so… time to head to the park, he guessed.

After sneaking away from the house, Bing finally allowed himself to hop onto his skateboard and head down random sidewalks in the general direction of the nearest park. He let his mind wonder as he skated, his body working on autopilot. Naturally, his mind wandered back around to the subjects of soulmates. He still wondered what it was like- to be linked to someone else, so much so that anything that touched one person's skin would show up on the others. Be it ink, injuries, or anything else that left a mark.

The literal other half of your soul, someone who, if you found, was guaranteed to love you. Granted, for some reason, people liked to skip over the fact there were eight different types of love, more in some circles, and not every soul pairing was destined to be romantic in nature, or ‘Eros’. Pretty sure it had something to do with the entertainment industry hyperfixation on romantic soulmates- you couldn’t put literally any of the other seven types of soulmates onto a tv without _someone_ whining that the producers were wasting a perfectly good pair of soulmates.

Bing was… well, he was an android. He didn’t technically have a ‘soul’ to be mated off to. Guess destiney must have other plans for him, huh?

Bing took a random left at a street corner and kept going, kicking his board along. After double checking his internal GPS to see how far he had left to go, Bing brought himself back to the forefront of his mind and turned off his autopilot. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to get lost in his thoughts, regardless of how boring it was outside today. Bing hadn’t even passed a single person yet, nor had he seen any cars. Not even sitting in the driveways he passed… huh. Was something happening today? There was nothing about it online…

Weird.

Given that he was both not paying attention to where he was actually going, and he’d turned off autopilot, it really wasn’t a surprise when Bing’s skateboard flew out from under him, sending him crashing towards the ground. He’d hit a large rock, he realized, right before smacking into the ground face first. He groaned before he pushed himself back up, plucking his sunglasses off his face and holding them by one end. He frowned as he looked at their scratched up state, the plastic frame bent nearly in two and warped at an angle, the actual glass part cracked on one side and popped out on the other. Great, now he’d need new ones. On the plus side… new sunglasses! He picked up the pieces and shoved them into his pocket, searching the ground for any pieces he’d missed. That’s when he heard the voice.

 _“Heart pounding in his throat, echoing alongside the sound of his feet smacking into the pavement as he ran. Black gasped for air, yet he couldn’t get oxygen into his lungs fast enough to satisfy his body, his sides screaming as they were pushed to their limit and beyond. His only though, however, was the need to escape, to flee as far away from that_ beast _as possible. It repeated in his mind, over and over in a panicked loop.”_

Was that the… Bing could hear those footsteps approaching, and fast. They sounded like they were about to turn a corner on the edge of the street, actually. Rapidly approaching. He stood, but didn’t have enough time to step out of the way before a young man rounded the corner, way to close for him to react to Bing either. Than again, if those narrations were any indication, this ‘Blake’ guy wouldn’t be thinking clearly enough to dodge anyways.

 _“So invested in his escape, he didn’t even see the stranger in his path until it was too late. Blake hit them at full speed, knocking the two of them to the ground. Reflexively, he gasped out an apology at the same time he attempted to yell at them to_ run _, his mind struggling to keep up as he leapt back- Oh god_ damnit, _what now?”_

Blake had run into him alright- but he might as well have run into a brick wall and expected it too crumble. Bing remained completely unmoved, all 350 pounds of condensed android that he was, while Blake was left to limp away. Blake was holding his nose like he’d broken it. Which he probably had, judging by the blood. Bing could almost hear what sounded like shuffling paper in the air before someone cleared their throat, followed by that same disembodied voice.

 _“Seriously, you could even knock_ one _person over without screwing it up? It’s not like I’ve asked that much of you, but nooooo, you’ve just got to go and be difficult about this whole thing.”_ The voice sounded annoyed… at best. _“You know what, we can work with this. Having broken his nose, Blake pushed his way past the stranger, one hand attempting to slow the flow of blood. With nothing but escape on his mind, he-”_

“What, no!” Blake shouted, glaring up at the air above them. It worked to cut the voice off, apparently. “Why the hell wouldn’t I get help?! Or, I don’t know, _warn_ this guy?!”

A long, drawn out sigh alongside what sounded like a pen being tapped against a desk. _“Look, there wasn’t even supposed to be anyone around here. Don’t know how this guy slipped through the cracks, but it doesn't matter. I’m just working with what I’ve been given, even though I’ll probably just end up cutting him from this part anyways.”_ Bing could hear the screeching of a pen against paper, and he… uh… wait, who was this guy and why was he bleeding? _“Besides, it’s_ very _important to your character arc that you handle this yourself.”_

“That’s _stupid_.” the guy spat the word like a curse. In the silence that followed, Bing could hear something- like a pen, if he had to guess, snap in two.

 _“All. You’ve._ Done. _Is._ Argue. _With. Me.”_ The voice continued, stressing each word like a shot from a gun. _“Do you have_ any _idea how much I’ve had to rewrite because you wouldn’t_ listen? _Do you think this is_ easy? I _’m herding cats here, I swear to_ fucking god- _how about this. The man Blake had run into, angered from the others klutzy nature, picked up a large rock from the side of the path and bashed Blake’s head in!”_

The nearest rock was the same one he’d tripped over earlier, funny enough. Bing knelt down, lifting the rock into his hand and standing back up in one smooth motion. He chucked the rock up into the air briefly, before catching it back in his palm, measuring its weight. Quite literally measuring it, actually. Blake started to back away, a flash of fear passing in his eyes before he turned to bolt. Unfortunately for him, the most he could do was limp pathetically away. Poor guy.

Bing shot forward, grabbing the man's arm and twisting it, effectively destroying whatever sense of balance Blake had left so that it was easiest for Bing to give him a little shove and send him crashing to the ground in much the same way Bing had earlier. He even landed on his face, which probably didn’t help his already broken nose. Blake somehow managed to collect himself fast enough to roll onto her back and attempt to kick Bing away- but he was sooner going to break his foot that get that method to work. Bing dropped down so that his knee pinned the human to the ground by his chest, shoving his hands away as he lifted the rock up. Bing didn’t exactly _like_ killing off humans, they were really fun to play with, but hey… he didn’t even know this one. So he didn’t really have much of a reason to hesitate before bring the rock down on his skull.

Now, human bone is pretty strong. Stronger than steel, even… depending on how you measured it. In terms of density, however, even an ordinary garden rock had it beat. And if you added in velocity too the two meeting, including if, say… the rock was flying into the skull with the added force from a machine that had the strength of a machine its designers had wanted to be able to easily pick up and move furniture at its owners request?  Let’s just say the bone wasn’t looking very good in this match up.

The rock ended up cracked in two. The skull… well, part of the skull survived. And even with the brain literally... Well, the body didn’t die right away. Bing felt it spasm under him, getting off it as the organs begin to shut down- some from the shock of the injury, mostly from the oxygen that stopped flowing as the heart came to a dead stop. It almost seemed to give off one last breath- which was mostly just the air inside escaping now that the muscles were no longer able to keep it inside, much like a deflated balloon. Bing stepped away from the body, dropping the rock… rocks(?) to the ground at his feet.

 _“Holy shit you- I honestly expected more recestince there. But you just… boy, you really did a number on him.”_ The voice chuckled, alongside the sound of more paper being shuffled around. They sounded surprised, but not concerned in the slightest. _“Well, that was violent.”_

“Well, it’s what you told me to do.” Bing said with a shrug, glancing up. He didn’t see anything but clouds slowly rolling across the sky, so he looked back down. His hand was just _covered_ in blood, so he wiped it off on Blake’s shirt. Not like the guy could complain, at this point.

 _“Yeah, and do you always listen to what strange voices in your head ask you to do?”_ the voice asked. Bing could almost detect a bit of… hope in those words. Huh. Weird. He also heard more scratching- someone was writing something.

He shrugged. “Well, doing what I’m told is in my code.”

 _“Code?”_ the voice asked, the sound of writing coming to a dead halt. He sounded… confused. Bing frowned, giving a nod towards the empty street. He had no idea if the voice could hear him or not.

“Yes,” Bing tapped the logo on his chest. “You know me, I’m Bing IRL- and yoooooou’re not the Host, are you?” Bing asked. Oops. It had sure _sounded_ like the Host, for a minute there. Plus, the Host was the only person he’d met that narrated people like this- it’s understandable he got confused, right? Maybe? Man he was embarrassed.

The silence stretched on long enough Bing generally believed that the voice might have left. He the body a little kick. Hmm. Someone should do something about this guy. Should he… call someone? The police? Bing didn’t have fingerprints, or left DNA behind, so it’s not like anyone could identify him from the crime scene. But if he called someone, they might be able to trace it back to him- Google was way better at hiding his tracks online than Bing was. Maybe he should call Google?

 _“So… Bing. I take it you know Cain, than?”_ The voice asked, startling Bing and causing him to jump.

“Uh.” Bing _didn’t_ know anyone by that name, but from context it wasn’t hard to figure out who the voice was referring to. Cain. Well… that name fit the Host, probably because he really needed a cane of his own. That sounded rude. He should avoid saying that to the Host. “Well, I thought you were- um, yeah? Do you?”

Bing felt like kicking himself. _Of course_ he would know the Host- apparently he was a real name-basis with the guy! And… sounded like him? But the voice in his head just chuckled, not seeming to mind that Bing had missed the obvious.

“I’m his older brother.” The voice explained explained. “Technically, by a few minutes. The Author. I’ve written several best selling novels, but I’m guessing he doesn't talk about me a lot.”

“No. Sorry, man.” Bing glanced down at the body again, tapping his hand against his leg. “Do you… want me to do something with the body?”

“Hmm?”

“Well,” Bing continued. “I don’t think we can just… leave it here.”

“I’ll take care of it.” the Author said dismissively. “It just needs to disappear, really. It’s not that hard. I was _going_ to kill him off in the next chapter anyway, but this works just fine. Perfectly, even. Perhaps we’ll even meet again. Soon. Very soon. Don’t worry about cleaning up the mess, it’ll be important later in the story.”

“Uh… sure.” Bing said as he stepped away to retrieve his skateboard. He glanced back at the body, watching it as he waited to make sure that the Author was really gone- and when he didn’t hear anything else, he continued towards the park. A more direct route this time. Wait- Bing decided to take a quick detour first to buy some new shades.

 

\-----

 

Bing assumed it would be awhile before he heard from the Author again, if at all. As it was, Bing had only made it to the park for a few minutes, during which he had found a spot without anyone else around so that he could practice some new tricks. Now, if he wanted to, he could run through a simulation of the trick he wanted to preform, analyze the force and movements needed down to the slightest twitch, and execute it flawlessly the first time. But that was… boring. And just one big reminder that he wasn’t human. But turning all those programs off and working through the tricks one at a time? Perfect.

His current trick involved him doing a sick backflip off hso board, onto a bench, where he would than jump and grab a branch from a tree planted next to hit to swing himself back onto his board, which would be rolling past from when he’d jumped off and pushed it along. His biggest issue was getting the timing of the board right at the end, and his attempts to slip in a selfie to snap a pic of him in his new shades. These ones where circular, with thin orange frames, and fit his face a whole a whole lot better than the old ones. Actually, the old shades… might have been for kids. Maybe. Possibly. But these ones? They might as well have been _custom made_ for him.

 _“Blake furrowed his eyebrows in concentration, trying to focus on his trick. He_ needed _to take his mind off that strange…_ whatever _it was, if only for a few minutes. He was going to go crazy if he didn’t. It’d had probably just been a dark dog, or something. Yeah… that was it.”_

Bing’s eyes shot up, scanning the park. There was no one near him, nor even approaching. But that had definitely been the same voice he’d heard just a couple days ago.

 _“_ **_Ahem_ ** _, I said_ , _Blake looked down at his skateboard, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he tried to pull off this trick.”_ The voice continued, irritation leaking into the tone. Realizing what was happening, Bing dropped his gaze back down to his board, continuing his trick. He pushed down on one end of the board with his heel, bringing his other foot up the board and getting into position before kicking off. _“But his mind was elsewhere, and the ground was coming way too close way too fast.”_

Bing crashed to the ground, this time managing to bring his arms up quick enough to protect his face, and more importantly his new shades from any more abuse. His board all but flew off into the grass, flipped a few times, and landed at the base of the tree, stuck between the roots. Bing glared up at the sky as he sat up in a huff, hoping to any distant other park goers he just looked irritated at messing up his trick.

 _“He slumped forward, a sigh bringing his shoulders up and dropping them down in defeat. It was no use- his thoughts kept flashing back to that… that_ thing, _and the more he tried not to think about it the worse it got. But there wasn’t much he could do just sitting here- after checking that no one had seen his fall, Blake scrambled to his feet and stepped into the grass after his skateboard.”_

Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed. Bing walked towards where his board had landed, deciding to play along for now. He didn’t see the harm in it- besides, it was kinda fun. Like an improv scene, or charades. Although he was a little confused on what was going on in this story- didn’t he kill Blake with a rock? Or… was Blake a nickname? Was he know the new Blake? Was this a Tim Allen killing Santa type situation?

Kneeling down, Bing reached for his board, hardly thinking much of the action. So it startled him back to reality when his systems were suddenly alerting him to danger. All his limbs locked up on him, preventing him from moving. Nor could he seem to override his own systems- panic seized his core, but in a strange, distant sort of way. Like he was being told to panic, rather than it coming from his own emotional center.

 _“The moment his fingers touched the wood  of his board a chill raced it’s way down his spine, freezing his feet in place. The warm summer air was replaced with a biting chill that gnawed at his skin, bringing back memories of his nightmare.”_ Flashes of the day he’d killed that other Blake raced through his mind, alongside… he could remember running, out of breath, body threatening to give in, but there was something in the shadows just behind him, snapping at his heels, chasing, chasing, chasing- those weren't his memories, but now Bing understand why that human had been running as if his life depended on it. _“And then he heard it.”_

A low humming sound reached his ears, almost like the rumble of an engine just about to turn on. One moment it sounded like it was approaching to his left, then it seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead of him and slightly to the left, and then it was _right behind him and he still couldn’t ******* move_ -

_“His breath caught in his throat as he dared not to move, praying that whatever was behind him was a figment of his imagination. His eyes remained locked ahead, on some chunk of fence near the edge of the park as he tried to will the creature away. Just as a hand, dark and crumbling and blurred around the edges as if it was made of smoke came into his field of view, his bound up nerves seemed to explode out through him and caused him to grab his board tightly, shutting his eyes as he wildly brought it around to swing into-”_

Into nothing. Bing peaked his eyes open in time caught a glimpse of wisps of smoke dissipating in the air in the spot he’d swung his board, but whatever had been here a moment before was gone. He panted despite not needing air, his eyes darting left and right as he searched for any sign of the creature before standing up on shaky legs, holding his board as tightly as if it were his own lifeline. He was starting to realize that just because he couldn’t hear the Author currently talking, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still being influenced to play his role in this story. He wondered what the difference was- why the Author would jump in and out of the two styles like this.

_“Everything was normal, except- Blake knew that had been real. And definitely not a dog. His first step forward was slow, shaky, as if afraid the ground was about to gave in on him, but then he sprinted forward, jumping on his board the moment his sneakers touched the sidewalk and picking up as much speed as he could, weaving around people in his rush to get away, to just run, as he had earlier.”_

This was _fun_ , Bing decided.

 

\-----

 

Bing tried not to make too much noise as he snuck back into the house. Everyone else should be asleep, or charging, or whatever Dark did when it was dark outside. He’d rather not wake up the whole house, but hey, after sneaking in a few times, you got used to all the little tricks you could use to sneak in without making too much noise. Like sneaking in through the back door rather than the front, and making sure to keep the handle turned until it was closed all the way to avoid the _click-thunk_ it normally made when he closed, and avoiding the center parts of the floor where it wasn’t settled and would creak as he passed over it.

Normally, the Author could just teleport Bing around wherever was needed for the story, either through having him ‘wake up’ in a new location or ‘time skips’ in the story. Funny enough, for the time skip one, even though it felt like he simply went from one location to the other, he had memory files of actually traveling between the locations himself. There was also this trick the Author could do where if Bing passed through the door, the Author could have Bing come out the other side somewhere entirely different. Really great for moving him around- but not, apparently, for dropping him off back home.

Apparently the brothers- the Author and the Host that is, didn’t get along. Like… at all. So the Author wanted to avoid doing anything that would catch the Host’s attention, which included warping Bing around within the same house as him. And Bing avoided mentioning where he was spending all his spare time as much as he could. He usually told the Google’s that he was hanging out with Chase or King, and he told Chase and King he was either handing out with the other or with the Googles. The only trick was sneaking back in when he was out late- he’d just finished up a murder mystery in which his character, the main one too boot, had been the murderer the whole time. (Spoilers).

He was halfway through the kitchen when the light turned on. Bing froze. He locked eyes with Yan, who was in her jamas with a stuffed bear Bing just so happened to know had a knife sewn into it. She yawned, seemingly ignoring Bing as she stepped into the kitchen, rubbing at her eye. For a second, he thought Yan might not be awake enough to even notice Bing, but then she looked at him with a very much awake gaze, and he threw that idea out the window. Sh*t.

“Hey, Bing.” Yan said, walking over to the counter and plopping her bear down onto it, making sure it sat upright before stepping towards the cupboards and grabbing a glass, than filled it with water from the sink. She brought it back over to the counter, leaning against it and finally looking back over at Bing, a slight grin on her face. “So… you do know you _suck_ at sneaking back in, right?”

“Um… maybe?” Bing muttered, rubbing the back of his head. “Guess I’ve just been losing track of the time lately.”

Yan giggled. “Oh, sure. Suuuure~ If you say so.” Yan said. Bing… didn’t like the sound of her tone, sing songy, like she knew something Bing didn’t. “You know, I can’t help but notice you’ve been staying out later ever since Googly oogly started his recent project.” she said, smiling wider and leaning over the counter, twirling the glass of water slowly in her hand.

“Uh, yeah. They’ve been really busy, so I’ve been spending more time with some of my other friends. Letting them focus on their project and all that- it seems to be important for them.” Bing explained, shrugging. What was Yan getting at… “They’ve just been busy, that’s all.”

“Too busy to spend time with you?” Yan asked, grin begging to slip into ‘unsettling’ territory. “So you decided to play the ‘hard to get’ card? Me and senpai play that game _all_ the time~”

Bing shifted, thoughts coming up short. Huh? “I… what?” Bing asked.

“Oh, you know what I’m talking about, little Bee~” Yan said, holding the glass to her lips and giggling. Bing didn’t think she actually drank any of the water before lowering the glass back down. “Pretending you don’t know each other, spending all your time with others to try and make each other jealous, it’s just another way of flirting~ Google-chan’s been spending all his time on that silly machine of his, and you’ve been trying to get him to notice you~”

“Um… well…” Bing didn’t wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I… not really? I wasn’t doing this _for_ Google, we’ve just happened to spend a lot of our time on different things lately.”

“Oh.” Yan’s expression fell, than she pointed at Bing’s arm. “Then… why haven't you written anything to Google-chan?” Yan asked. “I get that you guys don’t need to while you’re spending time together, but why not write when you’ve been apart so much?”

Bing blinked, staring at Yan in confusion. You could almost see loading circles in his eyes as he processed what she was saying. “Um… what?” Bing managed to ask.

“He’s your soulmate, right?” Yan asked, tilting her head to the side with a curious look on her face. “You’re the only person he spends so much time with… aside from the other versions of himself, that is. And no one else can talk to him like you can without getting kicked out of the workshop, or have all their electronic stuff corrupted.”

“Uuuuuuuuuh…” Great, how was Bing gonna explain this to Yan? He entire _life_ revolved around the idea that one’s soulmate was their _everything._

“And I was just wondering why you guys don’t ever draw on your arms- is it cause you would rather talk over the internet? Or if you draw on your skin, is it harder to wash off cause it’s not real flesh? Or are all four of them your soulmate, or just one of them, cause I’ve always wondered what having four soulmates would be like, or if the four of them are just like one soulmate in multiple bodies-” Yan continued, practically rambling at this point.

“Google’s not my soulmate.” Bing blurted out.

Yan froze. Her smile faltered, before her expression slipped into confusion. She seemed to be searching his face for the answer. “I… what?”

“He’s uh…. Not my soulmate.” Bing rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “We’re just close cause we’re the only search engine powered androids around. I… technically, since we’re machines, well… I mean yeah, we’re dating, but that’s not because... “ how to break the ice to Yan. Hmmmmm…

“Oh…” Yan slumped in her chair, finally taking a real drink of water. Things felt… awkward. “I’m not the only one that thought you were soulmates, actually.”

“I see.” Bing said. Well… he could see why people would think that. He didn’t know if he’d end up correcting anyone anytime soon. Sure, they weren't really soulmates, but did that really matter? It’s not like they’d get mixed up with their _actual_ soulmates when they didn’t have any.

“Then who is it?” Yan asked.

Bin snapped back to reality. “What?”

“Who’s your soulmate?” Yan asked. “And how come you never write to them?”

Okay… show time. Bing was fully ready to explain this to Yan, and was hoping she wouldn’t take it as something heartbreaking, when Yan jumped up, grin back on her face.

“OH, _that’s_ where you’ve been going, isn't it~?” Yan sasked, winking at Bing. “I _get_ it!”

“What?”

“When you run off- you’re spending time with your _real_ soulmate, aren't ya?” Yan asked, giggling.

“Uhhhhh sure.” Bing shrugged, smiling to her. It was easier than trying to explain the Author and the story he was helping to weave… and it let Yan keep her fantasy of a world of perfect soulmates intact..“You caught me.”

“Yeeeeee _eeeeeEEEEEEE_ ~!” Yan jumped up and down, giggling happily. “I knew it, I knew it!”

“Uh… can you not tell anyone? Please?” Bing asked.

Yan froze, tilting her head to the side. “Why?” she asked, still smiling.

“Cause… the same reason you and Morp are keeping you relationship a secret from you friends?” Bing guessed, with zero idea why Yan thought that she was keeping her relationship a secret. “I mean, i’ve only met this guy a few weeks ago, and it’s a bit more of a pragma type of relationship- I wouldn’t want Google to get jealous if he thought I was dating a human.”

Sh*t. Now Bing felt like sh*t for lying via omission about hanging out with the Author. He fully planned on telling Google, the second he was out of the house and out of the Host’s range, but they’d been spending all their time indoors thanks to their product. Which was taking forever. Maybe Bing could convince Google to take a break?

“They’re _human_?!” Yan gasped. “Oh, don’t worry, your star-crossed secret is safe with me~” Yan giggled happily, winking at Bing. It was about that time that they both heard the sounds of someone approaching the kitchen.

Both Yan and Bing went quiet, gazes landing on the doorway connecting the kitchen to the rest of the house. A few minutes later, low and behold, Google appeared in the doorway. Speak of the devil. Google looked first to Bing, than at Yan, than in the general direction of the two of them.

“Care to explain why Yan was doing her best impression of a banshee?” Google asked. Bing thought that was a little unfair- Yan hadn’t been _that_ loud… okay, so maybe she’d been louder than Bing would have liked.

 _“Hey!”_ Yan snapped, sitting upright in her chair and looking terribly offended. “I’ll have you know that was my _senpai shriek,_ I use it whenever I hear about senpai doing something _really_ cute! We’re gossiping about my senpai by the way, wanna join?”

“No.” Google entered the kitchen, displaying the time in a little screen that popped up over his hand. “It’s also past your bedtime, Yan.”

“UUUUUUG.” Yan leaned back over to dump her water in the sink, abandoning the cup on the counter. _“Fiiiiine,_ I guess. Night Bingy boy~” Yan said, picking back up her teddy bear and skipping out of the kitchen.

Bing awkwardly shifted in place, meeting Google’s eyes before giving a shrug. “So uh… hey?” Bing began.

“You know, you can tell Yan ‘no’.” Google said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to keep overworking yourself whenever someone needs help- Yan’s more than capable of spying on her… ‘senpai’ herself. She’s done so for years on her own already.”

“Oh.” Bing muttered in in response. So… Google thought he’d been spending extra time helping out Yan? Well… that made sense for him to think. “It’s no big deal, promise.” Besides, that’s far from the thing in his life right now that puts him at risk of ‘overworking’.

“If you say so.” Google said, not at all sounding like he believed Bing. He then pointed a thumb behind himself. “Are you coming to bed or not?”

Bing couldn’t stop the smile that crossed his face. “Since when did you jump on the charging port equals bed train?”

“Since you made me sit down and watch you go through a three minute and 27 second power point about why our charging ports are the equivalent of our beds.” Google answered, crossing his arms. “Or did you think I was just browsing the web while you gave that lecture?”

“Yes!” Bing pumped his fist in the air, beaming at his success in getting ol’ ‘by the dictionary definition’ Google to call the charging port his bed. He skipped foreword, crossing his arm around Google’s to drag him off to bed. “That’s a victory for me, just so you know.”

Google grinned. “Fine. You’re in desperate need of them anyways.”

Bing tried to punch Google in his arm. Google caught his fist and pulled him closer into a kiss. Bing decided to forget about the jab in favor of all 5′ 10″ of teeny tiny shorty (and handsome) robot in front of him.

 

\-----

 

_“This was stupid. He was going to die. This was stupid and he was going to die. He’d die because of how stupid his plans were. His gravestone would read, ‘Here lies Blake Scott, the only person in history killed by his own stupidity’. His family would forever live in shame knowing they were related to him.”_

Bing felt so motivated right now. Yep. The Author was just a ball of sunshine, wasn’t he?

In all fairness this was pretty stupid. His character, attempting to figure out where this nightmare-smoke-monster-wolf thing that was haunting him had come from, had stumbled into the abandoned basement of an old library and was poking around. Frankly this was more of an underground stone maze than a basement, but whatever was convenient to the plot, he guessed.

He swept his flashlight across his current path, passing a stack of file boxes against one wall, piles of junk here and there, and lots of books. Lots, and lots of books. Considering this place was supposed to be located under a library, he guessed the piles of books all over the place made sense. Sorta. Bing didn’t know what library would just toss a bunch of unused books into the convenient stone labyrinth located underneath it, but it was probably counted as some type of safety regulation. Bing moved to step over a pile of books blocking his path, only to trip on… the air? Nothing? And send some crashing to the floor. Yeah, that was definitely the Author’s influence.

Bing cast the flashlight up and down the all, freezing in tense anxiety that one of the shadow monsters were about to jump out at him. After nothing happened for several tense seconds Bing allowed himself to relax, picking himself back up and continuing down the hall. That fear, he had to admit, was his own. While the Author would never left him outright _die…_ he wasn’t exactly hesitant at throwing Bing into a literal monster den and making him escape by the artificial skin of his teeth. If there was one thing the Author was good at, it was setting up atmosphere.

At the end of the hallway was a doorway with a keypad, and he found it locked when he tried to open it. Well duh, it could never be that easy. It’d be lazy writing in that case.

_“Stepping back from the door, Blake paused to consider his options. He’d only ever seen someone break down doors in movies, and despite the dust gathered on most of the basement, the lock looked relatively new. He had no idea if entering the wrong code too many times would lock him out, or set off an alarm. And then if it turned out not to have anything to do with his demon problem, he’d have to explain to the library’s staff why he just broke their lock. He’d have to find the code on his own.”_

Bing turned around, heading back to the main part of the library.

_“Wait, where are you going?”_

Bing glanced up at the ceiling as he walked, flipping the flashlight in his hands. “You said the librarian was always writing her passwords down on sticky notes and putting them on her computer earlier, right? Wasn’t that foreshadowing that that’s the place I need to get the code?”

 _“.... Yes. I totally intended that. Definitely. You… go ahead and keep doing that.”_ the Author replied, the telltale sounds of his frantic rewriting in the background. Bing smiled to himself, looking back down at where he was going in time to smack face first into a wall. Bing backed back up, hand pressed to his face in more of a confused reflex than the result of pain. That wall… wasn’t here when he first got down here. In fact, that’s where the staircase had been.

Bing glanced back behind him, only to realize the hallway was a lot darker than it should have been. Even his flashlight couldn’t seem to light up the hall, which was just… unrealistic. Bing took a step back, hitting the wall behind him- while Bing had started to figure how this shadow stuff worked, his character was supposed to be clueless. Further down the hall, hidden in the darkness, Bing heard sounds akin to a wolf's growl, if someone who sucked at autotune had edited it. Bing took the opportunity to shut his eyes, pressing further back against the wall-

It still surprised him when the wall no longer existed behind him, sending him slamming back onto the stairs. Bing rolled over and looked up at the stairs leading out of this weird basement, which had gone back to normal, and chose not to look back as hurried up them two at a time, glancing around at the top to make sure no one had seen him before heading towards the front desk.

In his mind he began to rehearsed what he would say to get the old lady away from her desk, but lucky enough she seemed to have left already. Not knowing how much time he had before she’d be back, Bing slid behind the counter and scanned the desk for all her notes. It was… a mess. But out of all the notes, she only had one that fit the four number code he was looking for.

Grabbing a marker off the desk, Bing searched for a brief moment for the pad of sticky notes before thinking f*ck it and uncapping the marker, writing directly on his left arm.

 _“4926. Acting quickly, Blake grabbed the nearest pen and began to write-”_ the Author cut himself off as what sounded like a pen clattering to the ground followed his words. Bing paused, wondering what had just happened. He capped his marker, glancing around nervously before slipping out from behind the desk, walking away like nothing had happened. He was just headed back to the door leading down to the basement when the Author’s words reached him again.

 _“You know, I’ve got to, um….. Rewrite a few things here. And this is a very important part of the story, I’d hate to rush it. Sooooo, why don’t we call it a day for now and… come back to things later?”_ the Author suggested.

“... Sure?”

_“Okay great I’ll… get back to writing. Don’t wait up on me.”_

Bing waited another minute, but things were suddenly quiet. He couldn’t even hear the Author writing anymore. Huh. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Bing made his way back to the front of the library, out the doors, and down the sidewalk. Once he was sure he was far enough away, he pulled his hand back up and glanced at the numbers on the underside of his arm. A little rubbing alcohol and it’d come right out. But… for character reasons, he should probably leave it there for now.

So… that had ended faster than he’d thought it would. Now he had the rest of the day stretched out in front of him… time to call up Chase and see if he wanted to play some video games.

 

\-----

 

Up to that point, Bing hadn’t gone more than a day before hearing the Author’s voice in his head. He couldn’t say he didn’t look forward to it- He was created to follow instructions, and the Author was the only one in _years_ to actually give him regular tasks to do. The last person to give Bing so many orders was Ed Edgar, and he… well, after Google had found out what sort of things Ed was making Bing do… well, let’s just say it’s hard to give orders with a broken jaw.

But it had been a full week since he’d heard from the Author, and he had been forced to buy a wrist band to hide the numbers on his arm. And some cool looking bracelets for his other arm so he could hide it as a fashion statement. He still hadn’t pulled Google away from his work long enough to explain what was happening, and he’d rather not have anyone else asking too many questions. Yan, however, had winked at him upon seeing the band for the first time, then ran off giggling to herself.

So call him surprised when he powered on, not in his room, but in what looked like some rando’s fancy smancy  living room. There was even piano music playing in the background, and sunlight filtering through the windows- even though every weather report he had claimed it to be extremely cloudy today, with a high chance of rain.

“I decided to try something different today.”

Wait… What?

He was used t hearing the Author in his head, but this… this wasn’t in his head. It was directly in front of him. _He_ was directly in front of him.

The Author smiled, in a crooked way that made him look like a predator with its prey. He was leaning back on a couch, a leather bound notebook open on his lap and a pen in his hand. He gestured Bing to sit in a armchair directly across from, which Bing took slowly, as if the chair was going to bite him.

“At last, we meet.” the Author said, his eyes meeting Bing’s. Or rather, his shades. But Bing still felt like the Author’s eyes were burrowing into him, shifting in his chair and dropping his eyes- unseen behind his shades, lower. Toward the notebook. He read, upside down and in crooked handwriting, that the Author had written Bing waking here and being alarmed at his surroundings. Not Blake. Not the other handful of characters he’d played. Bing. HIs own name.

“... Author?” Bing asked, surprised. He hadn’t actually thought he’d ever see the Author in person, but he did look like Bing thought he would. That is to say, like the Host, but without his eyes bleeding out at all times into a bandage. If the Author hadn’t already said they were twins, Bing wouldn’t have had any doubt otherwise.

“The one and only.” the Author answered.

Bing ave him a nervous smile. “I, uh… this is a surprise.” he rubbed the back of his head glancing back up. “Nice to… uh, meet you. Officially in person, I mean.”

“I didn’t plan it myself. I normally only meet up with my muses when they need a little… _shove,_ let's say, in the right direction. And even then I tend to meet them in my shed..” the Author fiddled with his pen. “But you’ve been nothing but obedient- perfect, even. You do what I say- and I can make you do _so much_ more than a human could. Push you _that much_ farther.” a wide smile was stretching across his face.

“Uh… thanks?” Bing was pretty sure that was a compliment.

“But sometimes happened,” the Author leaned forward. “A twist even _I_ never saw coming. Something I thought….” shaking his head, he leaned back and flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “How long ago were you… made?”

“Me?” Bing paused for a second. That felt like an odd place to change the conversation. “Only a couple years ago, actually. But even then I only became ‘myself’ a few months ago when I got an… ‘upgrade’ from Google.” Not an upgrade he’d asked for. They’d had to strap him down to force him to take it, actually. It had been more of a reprogramming, if he was being honest with himself. But one he was incredibly grateful he’d gotten. “I was more machine back then than I am now.”

“I see.” Author nodded, placing his notebook down on the table, but ran his finger down his pen. “I’ve waited a long time for you, Bing. My whole life, to be exact. Do you know who I am?”

“Uh.” what was he… “the Author? Is this a trick question?”

The Author glanced up, smiling in a way that reminded Bing of a shark, before switching his pen to his left hand and writing on his right wrist. Oh cool, he was ambidextrous-

Something on his wrist tingled slightly. Bing dropped his gaze to his wrist, and his mind immediately crashed and rebooted.

This…

What…

How?

As the Author wrote, the name Isaac Wright wrote itself on his skin.


	2. Retcons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Author's a greedy bitch

“So, dude, bro, my man.” Chase began, grinning in a mischievous way. “It’s not like I don’t support flashing off a new look every now and again, but since when did  _ you _ start wearing long sleeved shirts? Seems like it’d mess with your mojo.” 

Given the trick Bing was attempting to pull off, he really should have kept his attention on his board. Currently, he had it balanced on the very corner edge of one of the park benches arm rests, in which all it would take was the smallest twitch or an unexpected breeze to send the board flying out from under him, and Bing crashing down with it. Instead, Bing decided to pull his attention off his balance and towards Chase, grinning at the camera the other man was pointing at him. 

“Dude, common man, what’s that supposed to mean?” Bing asked, raising an eyebrow high enough to be seen behind his shades. He decided, automatically, that this called for striking a pose. He rested one hand on his hip, and ran the other through his hair while flicking his head back for dramatic effect. He didn’t seemed to notice that, while he wasn’t paying attention to it anymore, his auto-balance had kicked in and made his posture absolutely perfect. “Clearly,” Bing began, tone posh and polish as if he’d been insulted. “I’ve been bitten by the  _ fashion bug. _ My  _ mojo _ is more powerful than you could  _ ever _ imagine.” 

Chase laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Sure bro, just keep telling yourself that.” he teased.

“Wow wow wow, bro, dude, what’s that supposed to mean?” Bing asked, sounding genuinely upset, but smiling in a way that suggested his wasn’t what so ever.

“Nothing, man. I’ve just never known you to miss a chance to show off the  _ gunshow _ before.” Chase explained. Bing’s smile grew a little wider, right before he flexed one arm to show of his (artificial) muscles. For a second he managed to hold the position just fine, before his weight, too heavily concentrated on one side, caused the board to tip back slightly. Than is just outright fell off. That just made Chase laugh, before stepping forward and offering a hand. “ _ Smoooooth _ .”

Chase immediately regretted his decision to offer the android a hand, when he was actually the one who had to support his weight. Chase was so used to Bing, and he looked so human, that it was easy to forget that Bing… wasn’t at all human. He had to use both hands just to make sure Bing didn’t pull him to the ground with him, and even than, he was pretty sure Bing was the one doing most of the work here. Well, at least he got some great shots before filming the ground for a few seconds. 

“Dude, you okay?” Bing asked, causing Chase to snap out of his thoughts and look back up. “You need a minute?” Bing asked. Chase had taken a moment to just breathe after helping Bing up, and he hadn’t realized how much time he was taking just to take in air. In fact, he was starting to feel a little off… naw. He was probably just too hot. He pushed the idea of being sick out of his mind, like he did most of the time when he felt that way.

“Bro, listen. You  _ really _ need to go on a diet.” Chase teased instead. Bing huffed at the jab, crossing his arms, and Chase punched him on one affectionately. “On calm down, you have to weigh, what, two-hundred pounds?” he asked. 

“350.” Bing corrected. “Or 160 kilograms.” Bing added, even though Chase probably didn’t even know what a kilogram was. 

“See? Told ya, that’s gotta be  _ waaaaay _ overweight.” Chase said. “So, ice cream?” he suggested.

“Definitely! Now,  _ that’s _ my kind of diet food.” Bing grabbed his board, spinning it around like a basketball before accidently dropping it again, than scooping it back up like nothing had happened. “I think you need to chill anyhow. And I mean that literally, figuratively you’re the chillest dude I know.” 

“Ah, thanks. And for the record, you’re the second chillest robot I know of.” Chase said, before immediately heading off down the sidewalk. Maybe it had been a little hotter today than it was supposed to be, some ice cream would make him feel loads better. In fact, it was even starting to feel colder out than it had been before. Chase wiped sweat of his forehead, briefly trying to shake his head clear.

“Wait, what? Who’s the first!?” Bing asked, bolting to catch up. He’d been surprised enough that he’d lagged behind, but now he was practically running circles around Chase. “Common man, tell me!”

“Dude.” Chase raised one eyebrow, giving Bing a look like he should know who he was talking about.

“Dude, dude, look, common.” they were waiting at a crosswalk now for the pedestrian light to change colors, Chase waiting patiently and Bing bouncing on the heels of his feet. “You can't just say something and leave me hanging, bro.”

“Common, just think about it. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.” Chase teased, and it almost looked like Bing was about to explode. Finally, he laughed, and decided he’d made Bing wait long enough. “Dude,  _ Jazz _ .” 

“That’s not fair.” Bing threw up his hands. “I can’t compete with a  _ transformer _ ! Also, he’s not  _ real _ , so that shouldn’t count.” 

“Fine, fine.” Chase gave in, smiling at Bing slightly. “I guess you really  _ are _ the chillested android I know, huh?” 

“ _ Yessss _ .” Bing pumped his fist in the air in victory. “Also, the light already changed.”

“What?” Chase blinked a couple times before he could realize the light he was looking right at had already switched to the ‘walk’ light, which was blinking to warn it would be gone soon. “Ah, oops. Guess I wasn’t paying attention for a sec.” he stepped off the sidewalk, hurrying across the street before the light changed again. But by the time he reached the other side, he was almost panting. 

“Dude, you sure you’re okay?” Bing asked, placing a hand on Chases back. Chase didn’t even notice that he was reading his internal temperature, or see the frown on Bing’s face. Given that, you know, he literally had his back to Bing at the moment. 

“Yeah, yeah… I just uh, um, need to sit down for a minute, inside. I uh, I’ve been on my feet all day recording videos and doing tricks, you know? Can’t all have unlimited robo stamina, so I guess I’m just a little tired. I might also be out of shape, you know?” Chase rambled, but from the look on Bings face he wasn’t convincing him of anything. But right now, the main thing Chase cared about was getting off his feet for five seconds. 

Bing all but dragged Chase towards their favorite ice cream shop, Twisted Flavors, and thankfully there weren't that many people in here, so that was less people to stare at Chase as he slumped into the nearest booth, running his hands threw his hair to try and get some of it out of his face. 

“I’ll… get you some ice cream, okay?” Bing said, but Chase didn’t register his words until he’d already headed towards the counter. Maybe he was feeling a little off today, but he was sure he’d feel better after a little time spent relaxing and cooling down. And had some ice cream, even if his stomach was a little knotted up right now, but he also hadn’t had lunch yet so maybe he was just hungry. And his throat felt swollen and he was getting dizzy and he couldn’t focus and and and- “Chase? Hello?”

Chase snapped his head up, out of his hands, to discover Bing sitting opposite him, bowls of ice cream in front of them both He blinked a few times, unsure how much time he’d just missed. “Ah- sorry, sorry. Guess I zoned out there for a sec. What were you saying again?” he asked, picking up his spoon and poking at his bowl. 

“Just that it's your fav.” Bing said, and oh boy did he sound concerned. Voice low, worried, his eyes never leaving Chase as he set a paper bowl of pistachio ice cream down in front of him. 

The ice cream…  _ really _ didn’t look appetizing right now. He dug his plastic spoon into the side of his scoop, creating a little ice cream pit without actually eating any of it. He started to spin the spoon, causing the ice cream to fold into little spirels of green stripes. Chase glanced back up, where Bing was still looking at him, even as he scooped up a large serving of his own orange citrus into his mouth. 

“Are you scanning me?” Chase blurted out, without thinking about it. He knew Bing has some features that let him do some Baymax level stuff, but Bing didn’t use it often. Didn’t normally  _ need _ to use it often. “I’m fine, see?” he said as he took of big spoonful of pistachio and shoved it in his mouth, swallowing without a second thought. 

His spoon fell from his hand, clattering to the table as Chase slapped a hand over his mouth. He shoved himself out of his bench, nearly hitting the floor before catching himself and scrambling to the back of the shop. Bing was left behind with some worrying scan results and even more concerns. He abandoned his ice cream to follow Chase to the bathroom, worried about leaving him alone right now. 

“Chase?” Bing called, and got no direct response. Instead, the sounds of retching came from the third stall. Bing stepped in front of it, giving it a push open. Chase was kneeling in front of the toilet, coughing and retching as his body tried to empty itself of more than just what bits of his breakfast were still in his stomach. “Chase.” Bing muttered a second time, kneeling by his friend and reaching out to him. 

“‘m fne.” Chase mumbled back, than collapsed into Bings arms. It took a second for Bing to realize Chase had actually passed out, which didn’t make him feel any better about any of this. He reached into Chases pocket, pulling out his phone and putting in the password he’d seen Chase input a thousand times. He could have just hacked into it, but… that somehow felt like a bigger breach of Chase’s privacy. Funny enough.

He scrolled through the contacts, finding one that looked like the one he needed. At least, he hoped ‘Doctor. Ze Good’ was who he thought it was. Chase didn’t exactly have the most straight forward labels in his contact list, if ‘Silent and also not Deadly’ and ‘a Boy but also a Man’ were anything to go by. Despite the situation, Bing made a note to himself to do the same with his own contact list. He could already think of some  _ great _ names for the four Googles. Putting that aside for now, Bing hit the call button and held the phone up to his ear. 

“Schneep?” Bing asked, the moment the phone stopped ringing. “It’s Bing.” he added. There was a moment of silence following his words that made Bing worry he’d chosen the wrong number, before-

“Ah, Bing! Hello! Yes!” Schneep said, in that horribly fake accent of his. “Chase did tell me you two would be doing some ‘sweet tricks’ at ze park. How is he? Why do you have his phone? Did he break his arm again, cause I have zis new numbing medicine I’d like to try out if he has.” 

“No, he hasn't broken anything.” Bing answered. “But he, uh, he passed out. After throwing up a lot. And I scanned him and nothing looks  _ good _ .” 

“Hmm. I see, I see. Now, where are you at zis very moment? Are you still at ze park?” Schneep asked, while in the background Bing could hear a door opening and shutting as Schneep moved around. 

“No, Twisted Flavors. He was getting hot so I suggested ice cream to help him cool off.” Bing explained. He felt Chases forehead as he did so and- yep, still in fever territory. 

“Alright, I see.” Schneep said, and then his voice got distant, like he had pulled the phone away from his face. “Jack! Jackaboy! Chase’s sick! No, he passed out- look I need you to go get him from twisted flavor- no, I don’t think he’d dieing. Well…. Maybe. Calm down! I’d be able to help him faster if you’d just go get him. Yes, good, go.” After a moment Schneep’s voice came back in clearly. “Alright, I’ve sent someone to come get him, he should be here soon.”

“Yeah… okay, thanks Schneep.” Bind said, pulling Chase further into his arms so he could carry him out of the stall. “I’ll head out and see him arrive.”    
“Good, good. I’m sure he’ll be there soon… I might have told him there's a chance Chase is dying.” Schneep explained, and then hung up. Bing looked at the phone for a few seconds, sighed, and then slipped it back into Chases pocket. 

Adjusting himself so that he could get up, Bing made sure he had a good grip on Chase before standing. He carried Chases weight easily, as if he was a ragdoll and not a fully grown man made of flesh and blood, finally carrying him out of the dirty bathroom stall. Now… to wait. He couldn’t take Chase back to the main part of the shop without freaking a few people out, but he wondered if Jack would realize where they were or if he might call to find out. 

As it turned out, that train of thought was pointless. While he knew that Schneep had said he’d be  _ fast _ , Bing had forgotten how litteral that was for a superhero until he heard voices pick up in the main part of the shop. A moment later the door to the bathroom flew open as the hero of the city himself stepped in, letting it shut itself behind him. 

It was actually really weird, to see JackaBoy Man himself standing in this random bathroom, fully suited up with his jacket and equipment and everything. No sooner had Jack’s eyes landed on Chase than he’d rushed forward, pulling his younger brother into his own arms. When passed between an android and a superpowered hero like this, Chase really looked like he weighed nothing. 

“Thank you.” Jack said, meeting Bings eyes for a second before turning and practically disappearing through the door. 

It took a second for it to really hit Bing that Chase was now out of his hands. Granted, he was in good hands, but still. Bing would have to leave the store by himself, and go on with his own life. He’d probably only hear when Chase got better once he did and called Bing himself, or someone posted about it on social media. Huh. 

Bing turned his back to the wall, letting his body slump against it before he slid down to the floor. Huh. Humans were fragile, weren't they? Sometimes he forgot how big the division was between  _ him  _ and _ them _ before he was reminded of it first time. He couldn’t get sick. Nothing that broke in him couldn’t be replaced. Most people wouldn’t even consider him a living, sentient being. 

He cast a glance towards the door, thinking. Even if someone did come in here, they wouldn’t know who, or more importantly  _ what  _ he was. He might not keep his identity a major secret, but most people who hadn’t met him had never even heard of a ‘Bing Search Engine based Android’. As far as anyone who walked in here was concerned, he was just some human, alone in a bathroom, checking up with his soulmate.

Mind made up, Bing hooked two fingers under one sleeve, pulling it down to his elbow. Black ink covered every inch of available space on his arm, all in Isaac’s neat, yet somehow messy-at-the-same-time handwriting. Sentences started and stopped at random, sometimes going on to form a paragraph of text and other times ending abruptly in the middle of a word. Ideas, concepts, speculation, reminders, and messages that had sprung to Isaac’s mind, or that’d he’d felt like writing down. And sometimes, tucked in wherever Isaac had found space, he’d written a ‘mine’ or a ‘perfect’ or his own name so that it would be woven onto Bing’s skin. Honestly, you might as well have taken a bucket of ink and thrown it onto Bings arm for all the words crammed together on there. 

Out of any human on this planet, the universe had given him a soulmate who could rewrite the world to his wilm. If he was ever sick, he’d just write himself back to full health. Probably while complaining that whatever disease he caught wasn’t  _ dramatic _ enough for someone like him. Bing let out a soft laugh at the thought. In fact, he’d probably make it  _ worse _ just to up the drama and make getting sick  _ worth _ it in the first place. 

Bing started to laugh harder at that mental image, nearly doubling over from it as he covered his mouth to stifle the sound. Maybe he just really needed something to laugh at, but for some reason the thought of Isaac getting the sniffles, and then treating it as if the world was ending was just hilarious to him. God, having it escalate to the point a  _ superhero _ got involved was  _ exactly _ … the… sort of thing…

Isaac… 

Would... write…

…

Bing’s laugher softly died out as he stared at his arm, turning over the events of the past hour he’d had with Chase in his head. He’d been fine up until he’d tried to help Bing stand up, but Bing had just assumed he’d pushed Chase a little too hard by letting him take some of the weight. Chase hadn’t even had to hold all of it, or he’d have broken his hand, but it definitely been the start of Chase’s strange behavior. And knowing him, he’d try and hide how he felt so everyone else could have a good time, but if you didn’t know what was ‘out of character’ for him, you’d keep trying to push him over the edge or until he gave in...

Bing pulled a red marker out of his pocket, which he’d need if he wanted anything he wrote on his arm to stand out from the endless black scrawling from Isaacs end, turning his arm over as he searched for a fresh spot to write on. He’d hate to write over Isaac's words, but he would have to if he didn’t- ah, right there. Right next to his thumb was a bit of clear skin on his arm that he could write on. 

_ ‘What did you do?’ _ Bing wrote, and then after a moment smudged out the ‘do’ and replaced it with ‘ _ write _ ’. As much as he’d rather not come off too strongly- let’s be honest. He knew better than to beat around the bush with Isaac, and he didn’t exactly have the space to have a normal conversation. This would be a lot easier if Isaac would just use a cell phone like a normal person. Bing waited to feel that familarier tingle that meant Isaac was writing something in return, and then- 

A bit of text under Bing’s writing, something about creaky floorboard, was smudged clean off Bing’s skin by an unseen skin, before new lettering began to print itself in their place. The message  _ ‘go through the door’ _ was all Bing got before the writing stopped. Bings gaze left his arm to the bathroom door, and he stood up slowly before approaching it. He’d done this plenty of times before, but there was still something disturbing about opening the door and instead of seeing the ice cream parlor he knew was supposed to be on the other side, he was instead met with Isaac’s writing room. 

Bing stepped through, letting the door shut behind him again. He knew, even without looking, that if he turned back he’d find Isaac’s door behind him, and Isaac’s hallway beyond that. He didn’t know if it was because he was a machine programed with a logical world in mind, but it had taken Bing  _ forever _ to stop poking his head back through whatever door he’d come out of in awe of Isaac’s ability to jump him between scenes at will. Now, however, Bing kept his eyes on the man sitting at the desk in front of him, crossing his arm. 

“Welcome back.” Isaac said, not bothering to turn around as he continued to write something down on the papers in front of him. There were papers literally everywhere- and not just counting the ones on the bookshelves that Bing had never seen Isaac actually use. How Isaac kept track of literally any of his writing when it was scattered on and around his desk was a mystery to Bing. “I’ll be with you in one second… just… let me…”

Isaac trailed off, leaning further over his desk as he wrote something down with more force than strictly needed. After another half a minute, he finally dropped the pen to the desk, took a deep breath, than turned to finally meet Bing’s gaze as a lazy grin spread on his face. “Bing, so glad you could stop by.” Isaac said, voice a near purr as if this was just a normal surprise visit. 

Bing didn’t respond, tapping his foot on the floor as a he awaited a response to his question. Isaac sighed, standing from his desk, nearly tripping over himself before taking a moment to stretch. Bing didn’t bother to ask how long Isaac had been sitting there. After what felt like way longer than a stretch needed to be, Isaac finally dropped out of it and crossed the room to Bing in several quick steps, reaching out to take Bing hands and force him to unfold his arms. 

“You’ve been busy these past couple days.” Isaac explained. “And you’ve already spent half the day with your… ‘friend’. I just wanted to give him a little ‘push’ so I could spend some time with you. And than that didn’t work so I had to give him a big shove.”

“Can’t you just sent me a text or something next time, you know?” Bing asked. “Maybe just call? I don’t need my friend to get violently ill just to have an excuse to see my soulmate. Also, don’t kill Chase, alright?”

“Of course not, I would never do that.” Isaac promised, holding Bings hands close and giving the backs of them a kiss. “Now, for a completely unrelated reason, I’ll be right back.” He said, letting go of Bing’s hands to dart over to the desk, grabbing some papers and a pencil and quickly erasing something before writing a new narrative in its place, then went straight back to Bing.

“Yep, I’m sure he’ll be just fine. This ‘Schneep’ seems like he knows what he’s doing and also,” Isaac leaned in closer. “Who was that guy that a fucking  _ superhero _ came to carry him to the hospital?” he asked, his voice a half whisper. 

“Oh- Chase? Jackaboy Man’s his older brother.” Bing explained. “I’ve known his family for awhile now, actually. I meet them through another Bing unit a few years back and I’ve been bros with Chase ever since.” Bing paused, observing Isaac’s face for a second and the gears he could just about  _ see _ turning in his head. For a guy who had spent most of his life alone, in the woods, he certainly didn’t have much practice hiding his thoughts. You could call him an open book.

“No, nope, I know what you’re thinking.” Bing held up a finger to get him to pause. “None of them will make good characters. The second Jackaboy knows you exist, he’ll fly in and punch you in the face. My brothers all logic and he won’t see any reason to pretend to be someone he’s not, and Chase will have a panic attack if he starts hearing a voice in his head telling him what to do.”

“I see.” Isaac grumbled, than sighed. “I just wish there were more people in the world like you, Bing. You’re… just perfect.” 

Bing felt that familiar tingle in his core that he always got when Isaac complimented him- well, when anyone complimented him, really, but Isaac was the only one who ever seemed to do so lately. If he’d had any blood in his body, he’d surely be blushing right now. In fact, it was enough to make Bing forget he was supposed to be mad at Isaac.

Wait… 

Was he supposed to be mad at…

“Now, since you’re already here, I have something I’d like to show you.” Isaac offered, already pulling Bing out of the room, and away from the papers on the desk. “Like I said, I’ve been waiting to have you all to myself for awhile now, and I intend to have you alright~”

Bing laughed at that. “Isaac, I swear you don’t realize how dirty you sound when you talk about your characters.” he teased. As they passed down the hall Bing caught glimpses of picture frames lining the walls- some had portraits in them, others were torn out or angrily blacked out with a marker, but all of them had writing on them in Isaac’s handwriting. Bing still remembered when Isaac had taken a photo of him for this exact wall- but he didn’t have time to see his picture before he was pulled down a corner and away from the portraits. 

“But what  _ did _ you want to show me?” Bing asked.

“Look.” Isaac said cheerfully, stopping in front of a doorway and smiling at Bing before pushing it open and gesturing the android inside. Bing glanced at Isaac, decided it probably couldn’t be worse that the things Isaac had shown him while he was writing, and stepped into the room. 

“Wow.” Bing muttered to himself, taking it all in. It was a bedroom, with walls that were orange then black then orange again, with white lines between the where the two colors met. A bed was pressed against the back corner with white and orange sheets, and most of the furniture had at least a little orange on it somewhere. It was like stepping into an orange fruit, and he  _ loved _ it. “Wait, it this-”

“All yours.” Isaac placed his hands on Bings shoulders, leaning on him. Bing almost didn’t notice the others weight, with how surprised he was. “What kind of soulmate would I be, if I didn’t even offer my soulmate the chance to move in with me?” 

“Seems a little soon, doesn't it?” Bing asked. 

“… What?” Isaac asked, backing up slightly to look at Bing. He could have sworn he’d written that Bing-

“You haven't even met my friends yet!” Bing pointed out, turning to look back at Isaac. He hadn’t met Isaac’s friends either but… Isaac might not have any. Well, Bing had already met his family at least. “And it’s gonna take a lot of explaining to just up and move out with you. Plus, if I don’t let the Google’s meet you first, they’ll probably assume you’ve just hacked me or something and do everything they can to keep us apart.”

“But I still love it, and I’d love to move in some day. Thank you Isaac.” Bing said, throwing his arms around Isaac’s shoulders in a hug. He didn’t notice how it took Isaac a second to relax under in his arms. 

“That’s fine, I suppose. A minor setback.” Isaac said, looking off in thought. “... on that note, when would you imagine I’d meet your friends?”

“Well, I’ll probably have to wait until Chase gets better before I drop this on them.” Bing suggested, shrugging. “So I guess we’d have to start with King and Yan, and of course Google and… the other Googles. They’re who I’m closest to, I’d say.” 

Isaac seemed confused by something. “How many…. ‘Googles’ are there, exactly?” he asked. 

“Four.” Bing shrugged. “Kinda? You got the main one, and then his three upgrades-” Bing cut himself off, looking off as a essage popped up in his systems from Google Blue himself. “Speak of the devil.” Bing mused, pulling away from Isaac. “Just got a message- I’m kinda needed back home.”

“... I see.” Isaac muttered. 

“But-” Bing held up a finger. “I don’t have anything scheduled for tomorrow. The moment I boot up, I’ll be all yours, okay?”

“Sounds like a deal.” Isaac replied. “And I know just the way to get you home.” he added, stepping back and digging a pen and folded up piece of paper from his pockets. He unfolded the paper, than pressed it against the top of a dresser, starting to write. 

“Do you… always carry those around?” Bing asked. 

“Of course.” Isaac said, writing for a lot longer than Bing would have thought he’d need to. Than again, he was literally connecting two points in space through an ordinary doorway, so it was probably more complicated to narrate than he thought it was. Still, it was kinda awkward just to stand by and wait for Issac to finish up, than gestured to the door with a grin. “All yours.”

“Thank you, Isaac.” Bing said, passing him and reaching for the door handle. He paused, feeling strange- than shrugged it off to open the door and step through in one fluid motion. The handle disappeared under his hand, leaving him to push open the glass door as he stepped into the main entrance to the former office building he called home. He glanced back behind him, at the glass doors leading to the sidewalk outside, and didn’t notice the other person until she decided to announce herself. 

“Bing-chan!” Yan cried out happily, skipping happily towards the android. “There you are~”

“Uh, Hi Yan.” Bing waved at the girl. “Sup?”

He’d seen Yan around, but he hadn’t talked to her since he’d accidentally told her the truth about his soulmate back when he had no idea what he was talking about. But ever since he’d put on a shirt with long sleeves, she’d been casting him glances and giggling like- well, like a schoolgirl. 

“I thought you were hanging out with Chase today?” Yan asked, tilting her head slightly to the side and folding her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels. She’d look adorable if she wasn’t also a psychopathic murderer and stalker. 

Bing glanced around to make sure no one else was in earshot, than leaned forward to whisper to her under his (nonexistent) breath. “I was with my soulmate.” he whispered, grinning as he watched her gasp, an excited grin brightening up her face. 

“I knew it!” Yan gasped, almost shouting. “You always look so happy when you go see him!” Yan glanced around, than grabbed Bing’s arm and dragging him over to a corner of the room. “So… tell me  _ all _ about it.” she whispered excitedly. At Bing’s blank look, she pointed towards his arm. “ _ Him _ . I want  _ all _ the juicy details.” 

Bing glanced down at his arm, gave a double check that they were alone, than rolled up the sleeve on his right arm. He watched as Yan’s eyes widened in surprise and her mouth fell open, freezing like a crashing computer. She shook her head, regaining her composure, then immediately grabbed his arm, turning it this way and that to read everything. “Why doesn't  _ my _ soulmate write this much?” she muttered to herself. 

“Well, mines a writer, so he does a lot of… well, writing.” he explained. “Most of this stuff is just him recording his thoughts, anyways.”

“Pfff. Lucky.” Yan huffed, crossing her arms. 

Bing rolled up his sleeves, glancing at the doors again to make sure someone didn’t walk in on them. “So uh… what about yours?” he asked, then immediately regretted it when he realized he’d opened the floodgates. Again.

Yan, on the other hand, lighted up. Again.

“Oh my gosh! So, you would not believe it, but I actually ran into my soulmate in the mall today! I didn’t know he would be there, since he normally goes there on fridays and saturdays, but he happened to be there and I was able to corner him near one of the bathrooms! He was pretending not to recognize me again, but that’s okay, because Warfstache taught me how to play how to get. I even had my pocket knife and everything!”

Yan stopped to take a breath. 

“But… oh, the details get fuzzy, you know?”

“As I was leaving I swore I saw him again! He screamed a lot when he saw me, it was so silly. I was only covered in a  _ little _ blood. I ended up having to follow him home, and I was able to sneak in and steal some stuff from his bedroom! I’ll need to remember to bring my camera next time, but-”

“ **_Bing_ ** .” Google snapped, interrupting Yan’s story, and then grumbled under his nonexistent breath. “Finally, there you are.”

Bing nearly jumped, spinning around to find Google approaching him. If you hadn’t known him, you might not have thought much of his posture. In fact, it probably looked more  _ normal _ than his normal walk. Pace uneven, arms swaying slightly with each stride, slightly bent over, his feet heavy but not stomping on the ground. Most people walked like this- and it was incredibly inefficient. Google normally stood straight, each step planned out three feet ahead to cross the most distance while using the least amount of energy, giving him a steady and efficient pace as he practically glided across the ground. In contrast, it was pretty clear Google was  _ mad _ . 

Oh, and also his hands were in fists at his sides and he sounded like he was about to hit someone. Probably a human. Those were also pretty big clues about his emotional state. 

“Huh… hey Google?” Bing asked, forcing a grin to his face. It still looked incredibly nervous, but he was still trying. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got a problem. A problem covered in peanut butter and fur.” Google didn’t normally have a concept of ‘personal space’, and he didn’t have one now. He stepped right next to Bing, his hand grabbing Bing’s arms and beginning to tug him towards the lab. “He’ll listen to you.”

“Oh no.” Bing sighed, already rolling his eyes under his shades. King was a pretty awesome friend, ‘specially when he let you climb his favorite tree and meet his subjects, but sometimes he also that friend that let his subjects run wild somewhere they shouldn’t and then cling to the ceiling fan for five hours. Bing doubted that exact same scenario had happened again, but… “What’s going on?”

“It’ll be easier to show you.” Google said, which just raised more alarm bells. Bing wasn’t even sure he wanted to see what was going on now. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll have to catch up with you later, Yan. Sorry.” Bing apologized, glancing back at the girl. “But don’t worry- a promise is a promise.” 

“Okay, Bing-chan.” Yan smiled and darted forward, giving Bing a surprise hug that briefly squished him between her and Google before giving him a pat on the cheek, winking and darting off while giggling to herself. Bing was left feeling awkward and slightly embarrassed, mimicking coughing into a fist to avoid looking at Google right away. 

“Does she even know what chan means?” Google grumbled, voice low and dripping with poison. Yep… he was far past his daily tolerance for humans. 

“Don’t think so. Isn't Squirrelboy loose in the lab or something?” Bing asked quickly. 

“Correct.” Google snapped back to business, letting go of Bing and heading straight towards the lab. Bing hurried after him, rolling his eyes at Google’s impatience. Well… who knew, maybe they didn’t have time to spare with whatever King was up to. But still, he wished Google would slow down a little. As he followed Google, he received a notification that someone had texted him, than did a double take a the information in his vision when he saw who it was. So Isaac  _ did _ know how to text, than.

**Author Guy: So that’s Google, huh?**

**Author Guy: Seems… professional.**

Unseen behind his shades, Bing rolled his eyes while allowing a small smile to slip onto his lips. He also made a mental note to change Isaac’s name in his contacts at some point, perferrible to something inspired by Chase’s own naming conventions. He hadn’t even switched it once he found out Isaac’s real name! Bing was about to type- well,  _ think _ and send a no back, but than he gave Google another glance as he followed behind him. He couldn’t really say he didn’t see him, or the other Googles as an extended family. They might be…  _ them _ , but they were some of the closest things an android had to relatives in a world filled with humans. And Oliver was totally a bro. 

**Bing™: yeah thats google he can be a bit stuck up sometimes but you get used to it also hes annoyed right now so hes not exactly giving off the best first impression**

**Author Guy: That’s the worst grammar I’ve ever scene. All lowercase, no periods, no apostrophes, no breaks? Congratulations, it’s so bad I’ve gone blind. I’ll tie a bandage around my head and everyone will confuse me for Cain.**

**Bing™: im literally the embodiment of text to speech it takes more concentration to add that stuff**

**Bing™: also**

**Bing™: i think I know how to tell you apart ;3**

**Bing™: ill just look for the one who stops talking for five seconds**

**Author Guy: That’s it huh? Nothing about writing on your arm or an unshakable bond we share, you’d just tell us apart cause my brother is a chatterbox? Well, I can’t say that’s not true.**

**Bing™: aw don’t worry isaac**

**Bing™: you only stop talking for 6 seconds**

**Author Guy: Well, ha ha.**

 

\-----

 

“Further into the building, the Host drops his book in shock. Whilst he had been eavesdropping on the rather humorous situation the Google’s had found themselves in, he had overheard something incredibly alarming that the reader would now get to see his reaction to. He fumbles to pick the book back up as the room that the Host is in is described to the readers, from the elegant details on his smoke armchair to the fireplace crackling softly with a dim flame, a perfect place for a narration. The room is round, small and empty of any other furniture save for the small table next to the chair the Host now puts his book down on.

The Hosts hands are shaking as he places them in his lap, folding his hands together in an attempt to still them. He recalls how Bing had been disappearing at odd times, during which even the Host’s narrations couldn’t find him. But he’d never thought that Bing could have possibly- none of the Authors characters lasted very long, and surely the Host would have noticed if Bing were being forced to follow someone else's wilm. At the very least, he would have told someone else. But a cold shiver works it’s way down the Host’s spine as he considers the words of their digital conversation- that perhaps… no, it  _ couldn’t _ be. The Host knows that Bing is not someone who would get along with the Author, he breaks to many rules, is too uncontrollable.

Isn't he?”

 

\-----

 

Bing immediately understood why Google had been unable to just  _ tell  _ him what King was doing. 

“How the  _ f*ck  _ did you manage to do… this?” Bing asked, opting to gesture at… the mess instead of trying to verbalize it. He didn’t even want to… he turned his attention back to King, who had somehow managed to cram himself between top of a bin cabinet and the ceiling, nuts and bolts mixed together in the peanut butter on his face and stray electrical wires sticking out of his hair. “Seriously man, get down from there.”

King of the Squirrels made a chattering noise, which was echoed from the inside of his cloak. A moment later, he wiggled his way forward, twisting around to drop onto one of the glitter covered filing cabinets and use it to jump down to the floor. He slid past the confetti and both the drenched Red and Gamma, coming to a stop by Bing and clinging to his arm. All four Google’s were glaring at King, even Oliver. Which… was that strawberry jam or- it was probably strawberry jam. Yeah. 

“‘K.” King squeaked out, sounding very much like he’d like to go before one of the Googles decided to take a step towards them. In fact, he was practically using Bing like a shield between him and the other androids, which meant Bing had to half drag, half guide King out of the workshop and into the hallway. It was only when the door to the workshop was firmly closed behind them that King let go, sighing as his whole body seemed to unwind in relaxation. 

“Seriously, what were you thinking?” Bing asked. At this point, he didn’t know if he was begging for an explanation or if he didn’t want to know anything about what had happened. King looked at Bing as if it were obvious,  shrugging once. Bing sighed. “Just… you aren't gonna do that again, are you? Google will probably kill you if you do, and if not… you know what dude? You should probably just steer clear of the Google’s for awhile. Just in general.” 

King shrugged, not even bothering to look at Bing. Instead he looked inside a bag he’d made be crabbing to ends of his cape, allowing his squirrel friends to hop out and onto his shoulders. He chattered with them, nodded, and finally turned back to Bing. “Maybe. Thy duties of thou king are simply lost on thee, I admit. I Thank thee for rescuing thou, young automaton, but thou must attend further duties.” 

With that, King ran off down the hall, chattering with his squirrels more. Bing watched him go, sighing softly and shaking his head. He really hoped King took his advice on staying away from the Google’s for a little while. Also, he should probably offer to help the Google’s clean up with what had happened. Whatever had happened. But before that- as he was turing to reenter the workshop, he heard footsteps and grumbling coming down the hall. 

He’d honestly expected the Host, but it was Dr. Iplier coming this way. Bing paused, hovering outside the workshop as the good doctor (but not  _ the _ good doctor) finally seemed to notice Bing, slowing to a stop. Dr. Iplier huffed, than took in a deep breath, straightening as he composed himself. “Bing.” Dr. Iplier said, sounding none too pleased this fine day. “I was just about to ask one of the Googles for help.” he sounded like he wanted Bing to move, but didn’t want to outright ask him to do so. 

“They’re…” Bing flashed back to the mess. “Busy. King… made a mess of the workshop, they’ll probably be busy for awhile.” 

“Oh, that’s just  _ great.” _ Dr. Iplier snapped, glaring at the workshop door. “Seriously, of  _ course _ King would do something right when a computer decides to break down on me.” 

“Well… I could help.” Bing pointed out. 

Dr. Iplier wrinkled his nose, looking at Bing as if he were suggesting they leave the computer to random scalpers on the internet. Than he gave another glance at the closed door to the workshop, weighed the option in his mind, and finally sighed as he gave in. “Fine. Common.” 

Bing followed Dr. Iplier back to the clinic, who merely pointed at computer monitor plugged into some other machines in the back wall. He then left Bing alone, sorting some papers off near the other end. Alright, fine then. Bing approached the computer, connecting to it so that he could figure out what was wrong. Dr. Iplier hadn’t given Bing much to work with… huh. While it responded to him just fine, the screen itself remained off, making it only  _ appear _ like it wouldn’t work. Bing’s first thought was to check the connections in the back in sides for faulty connections. 

Nothing was partially unplugged, and he didn’t see anything wrong with them at a glance, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something wrong under the black insulation. Still, he didn’t want to rush around grabbing more wires if that wasn’t even the problem. He unplugged the power cable, set a thirty second timer, and waited for it to run out before plugging it back in and turning it on. Once again, the computer itself was fine, but the monitor remained  black. 

“Are you done yet?” Dr. Iplier asked. “How hard is it to turn on a computer anyways? You  _ are _ one, in fact.”

Bing jumped, glancing behind him at where Dr. Iplier had snuck up on him. Not deliberately, but Bing simply hadn’t heard him. “Well,” Bing began. “The computers turning on just fine, it’s the monitor that won’t work. I need to test out if any of the cables aren't working before I can do anything else, though…”

“Great.” Dr. Iplier rolled his eyes.  _ “I _ could have done that, and you haven't even fixed it. Just leave, I’ll fix it myself.” he pushed past Bing, grumbling under his breath. “Not like I’m busy enough as it is already.”

First opening his mouth to argue that Dr. Iplier wasn’t giving him a chance to fix it, Bing decided not to waste his nonexistent breath and just closed it again. He also didn’t point out that if he were one of the Googles, Dr. Iplier wouldn’ve just left him alone until he’d finished his job, but he did glare at the doctors back before leaving the clinic. He wondered back in the direction of the workshop, trying to push away the annoyance in his gut. His nonexistent gut. It was more of a pump that helped vent coolant through his system. But he did feel hot. 

It didn’t help when he passed a now dry Red in the hall. He kept his eyes off the android, watching the floor and hoping Red would just pass him without trying to take any anger out on him. He supposed it was partially a success when all Red did was shove him away, despite not being in his way, knocking Bing into the wall and halfway towards the floor before he caught himself. Bing glanced back and watched Red leave, glad that, at the least, Gamma wasn’t also here to beat him up. When he continued on his way, he chose to avoid the workshop for now. 

Which is how he eventually ended up walking into the living room, where Dark was glaring at the TV. It was only playing static, despite the fact Dark had pulled his aura so tightly to himself it wasn’t even visible as more than a gray wash on his skin. Wilford was on the couch, watching the TV intently as if it were his favorite show, drinking a glass of wine. Dark hit the side of the TV, grumbling to himself. Bing was just considering whether he should stay or slip away unnoticed when Dark turned back, likely to say something to Wilford, when he spotted Bing and effectively cut off his second option. 

“Bing.” Dark said. “Go get a Google.” 

Bing paused, glancing at the TV, than back at Dark. “I could fix it.” he offered. 

Dark rolled his eyes. “And break it further in the process? Just get one of the Googles, at least you good for that.” 

From the couch, Wilford made a hmm sound, as if thinking, after taking another sip of wine. “Why do we even keep him around, again?” Wilford asked. Bing didn’t wait around to hear the response. 

Bing hadn’t known what to expect back in the workshop, but it wasn’t really nothing. The floors and tables had been cleaned, with mostly everything put back in place. The only Google even in here was Oliver, who was cleaning off the last jam from his arm with a rag. Oliver glanced up, but didn’t give him too much attention. 

“Dark needs someone to fix the TV in the living room.” Bing said. “It’s all static.”

“It’s probably just… him again.” Oliver responded, tossing the rag aside. Simple machines tended to react… negatively to Dark, so this wasn’t much of a surprise. Oliver continued, double checking himself as he did so. “I’ll take care of it… do you see anymore Jam on me?” he asked. 

“No.” Bing grumbled, glancing away. “Guess you better hurry up, Dark was pretty annoyed when I left.” 

Oliver moved towards the door, ut paused, hovering by it before glancing back at Bing. “Hey.” he called over. “You okay?” he asked. 

“Yes I just…” Bing sighed, rubbing his arm. A nervous tick he’d picked up from Chase at some point. “I wish people would give me more of a chance to help out.”

“Well… maybe you just need to give them some space?” Oliver suggested. “If you’re always bugging them to let you help, they’re just gonna get annoyed.”

Bing flinched. “Yeah…”

“Great. I’ve got to go help Dark now, but maybe I’ll be able to find something for you to help out with when I get back, okay?” Oliver offered, finally stepping out the door and leaving Bing behind. Bing didn’t stay for long- he headed towards the door, intent on leaving, before Gamma showed up. 

The green shirted android paused in the doorway, blocking the way as his gaze fell on Bing. He’d also dried up, and his shirt was a lighter green suggesting he’d swapped it out for a new one. Bing hoped he’d just move on, but he had no such luck when Gamma decided to lean on the frame of the doorway, crossing his arm. 

“Oh, look. You’re back. Did you need something?” Gamma asked, venom dripping from his voice. 

“Yep. Dark needed someone to fix the TV, and I told Oliver about it.” Bing explained. “But I was just leaving.”

“What, did you break it?” Gamma asked. He finally stepped into the room, passing Bing and hitting his shoulder as he passed, unnecessarily shoving him to the side. “Or are you just so useless that you’re only good for finding a Google?” 

Bing flipped Gamma’s back off, finding himself unable to form words. It was almost like they were getting stuck in his throat, burning a hole in his endoskeleton. He turned on a heel and left instead, ignoring everything else in favor of making it back to his room before he ran into someone else, throwing himself inside and slamming the door behind him. 

It was  small room, but Bing didn’t normally spend much time in here. He just charged or used it to store his things, like spare cloths, his skateboards and his games and sh*t like that. Lately he’d even begun to keep spare shades in here, just in case he broke a pair during one of Isaac’s stories. He plucked off his most recent pair, chucking them next to the others. They slid across the top of the dressed and landed on the ground on the other side. Bing didn’t bother to pick them up. 

He threw himself onto his charging dock, trying and failing to calm down. Bing wished he’d been built with the ability to cry, because that would make it a million times easier to get rid of these built up emotions. Maybe that could be the next upgrade he worked on for himself- tear ducts. Why not- it’s not like anyone needed him for anything,  _ ever. _ Fuck feeling things. For once in his artificial life, Bing wished the programmers who worked on him had been worse at their job. 

A familiar tingling sensation came from his arm. Bing rolled down his sleeves, watching as a section of Isaac’s handwriting was cleaned away from the other end of their connection, letters smudged against one another and words reduced to running ink before it was all swept away, leaving enough clean skin behind for Isaac to write ‘check you phone’. Bing didn’t know if it was how stressed he’d been, or the absurdity that  _ Isaac _ of all people was telling Bing to check his phone, but he laughed when he saw that. A short, but welcome laugh. 

Bing dug his phone out of his pocket, discovering texts he’d completely missed. 

**Author Guy: I don’t understand why you stay with these people, Bing.**

**Author Guy: I’ve avoided peering into you life for the sake of privacy- but this? What do you see in them?**

**Author Guy: Am I really that unlikable that you’d rather stay with people who see you as an inferior version than with me?**

**Bing™: its not**

Bing hovered his fingers over the screen, unsure what he wanted to say. It’s not like that? It’s not so bad normally? It’s not like he, Bing himself, matters? He dropped his eyes back to his arm, running his thumb over one of the spots where Isaac had written ‘perfect’ over his skin. Why…. why did he want to stay here? No one even seemed to  _ want _ him, he could have just  _ left _ at any point. Walked off, found a new job, cut himself off from these people. There was no…

There was one reason he’d stayed. 

It’s hard, to be an android in a human’s world. The Googles were some of the only members of his  _ kind _ that existed. And as much as he might enjoy humans, and fitting in with them… at the end of the day, he never felt like he belonged. Even if he erased all his memory files, put all his maintenance on subroutines that took place when he ‘slept’, he wouldn’t  _ feel _ human. He knew he wasn’t one. He was no more human than the day he was first turned on. 

But were the Googles really worth this? Was anything? 

Yan had said Bing always looked happy when he came back from helping the Author on one of his stories. If it was that noticeable, than what was he like normally? 

**Bing™: is**

**Bing™: is the offer still open?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who read the original version of this story, you'll know the decent into Bing's abuse at the Iplier house was slowly shown over chapter 3 and half of it was saved for the never published chapter 4. That was really bogging the story down, so I've taken a more instantaneous change in this version. It's more in character for the Author anyhow, and it keeps the plot moving.


	3. Captain Exposition Narrates Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time, partly because the Host is a very straight forward, describe it as it happens kinda guy... and partly cause chapter four's gonna be a BEAST

“The Host apologizes for calling this meeting at such short notice.”

Already in his own seat, the Host waited patiently as the others file into the meeting room. He’d called this meeting as soon as he’d realized he realized his narrations no longer matched the ones he was used to, which just so happened to be about the moment he’d realized he couldn’t find Bing. He hadn’t even bothered to call the meeting normally- he’d tapped into his narrations, altered the others plotlines to bring them to the meeting. The others wouldn’t know why they were here, but they’d grown used to the Host enough not too know when he had narrated them into doing something out of character.

A few mutters here and there, complaints about being brought here so suddenly. Dark muttered under his breath that the Host should have contacted him before calling the meeting, knowing the Host would hear and that he’d also be aware of the annoyance dancing unseen in his aura, drifting over the Host as Dark passed him towards his seat. The Host hunched his shoulders up a little higher, but didn’t react much further than that. He was already hunched over the table as it was, hands folded on the surface in front of him.

Two of the Googles were also complaining- his narrations brought him the ever present titanium and plastic when he attempted to focus on any of the ‘brothers’, outlining the make and connections of their varying parts. The Host didn’t understand any of it, so he relied on the more superficial details to tell them apart. One voice was akin to waves lapping at a shore, while the other was that of rustling leaves. The main Google and Gamma were complaining, than. The fire and sparks- Red and Oliver, respectively, where both quite, but his narrations whispered to him the wisps of flame and dancing shocks that raced in circles around their heads, filled with questions they desired answers too. They were not normally brought to meetings like this… or at all.

He didn’t need his narrations to tell him Dr. Iplier was complaining loudly, although they did help to build a picture of the doctors current state. Clutching a steaming mug of coffee in his hands, far from his first. Not quite focused on the room around him, the Host’s narrations the only reason he had even made it here at all. He’d been up for far too long already, would be luck if he didn’t pass out in the middle of this meeting. It also ebbed away his filters, drawing complaints out of him like a running faucet.

“The Host reminds the room that despite being blind, he can still hear their grumbling just fine. He then kindly asks them to shut the fuck up.”

The silence that followed was brought on more by surprise at the Host’s language and his forwardness than genuinely listening to him, or caused by the Host forcing his narrations to change the overall narrative. He took a calming breath, the silence of the room suddenly seeming so much louder now that the Host was not feeding into a constant background noise. He resumed shortly, describing his own momentarily silence and the awkward feeling left hanging in the air.

Google, who wishes to get this meeting done sooner rather than later, is the most unfazed by the Hosts’ sudden use of sharp language. He gestures for his brothers to follow, snapping them out of their surprise and causing them to resume their entrance into the meeting room. He takes his normal seat, across from the Host, mirroring his posture with a straight back and an upward tilted face.

The other Googles take seats of their own. Red takes the chair that belonged to Edgar, Gamma takes Shepard’s, and Oliver takes Trimmer’s, none of which had been invited to this meeting. Dr. Iplier takes his own seat slowly, so as not to spill any coffee from his fifth mug that day. Dr. Iplier thought it rude of the Host to say that piece of information out loud, even though his caffeine addiction is common knowledge. The Host allows himself a small smile on his lips as his narrations continue.

Yan  skipped into the room happily, taking a chair near the end of the table, set out just for her to have a seat.

Wilford, as usual, ignores any chairs and simply sits on his end of the table, one leg kicked up on the surface so that he could turn and face the Host, grinning ear to ear. Knowing the Host, and knowing how little he called meetings, Wilford was sure they were about to get some ‘juicy gossip’. Wilford winks at the Host, who is still blind, and does not see it. Therefore rendering the action pointless. Wilford pouts at the Host for ruining his fun, which the Host is still unable to see as he remains blind. Wilford throws a pen at the Host, which he sits back to avoid having hit him.

Wilford flips him off. The Host does not see it.

Dark facepalms. From behind his hand, he asks the Host if he is ready to begin.

“The Host nods, and clears his throat.” For the second time that in this meeting, the Host allows the narrations to go silent as he kept his voice in his chest.

It was strange, to be silent. The narrations continues in the back of his mind, a constant flow of information that taunted him with the things he’d never see. He could describe every inch of the men who sat around him, reveal things about their appearance even they didn’t know, but he’d never _actually_ seen them, and he likely never would. Sometimes, the Host would have rather been just blind. For now, he pushed back the narrations, spoke with his voice and his voice alone.

“I mean, yes.” The Host said. “I am.”

The Host was well aware that he’d never talked in first person in front of most of the people in this room. He was also aware that most people didn’t know he was capable of such a thing, had never even known him to be anything else. The Host allowed them a moment to digest what he’d just said- the use of the letter ‘I’ in place of his name. His narrations continued to whisper unheard in his ear, describing how Dr. Iplier choked on his coffee, and the Googles were whispering to one another over the internet, debating why the Host choose to talk like this _now_ of all times. Theories were already being spawned between them, shot down as soon as they appeared. They could have merely waited, and the Host would have made it clear soon enough.

“You can _talk normally?”_ Oliver asked, leaning over the table to look around Dr. Iplier and stare at the Host. Everyone was staring at him, according to his narrations, including those that already knew of the Host’s ability to speak of himself in the singular pronoun. It was not something he did often, and meant something when he did. The Host allowed a frown to tug the corners of his lips down, tilting his head in the direction of Oliver’s voice before turning back to face forwards. He heard Oliver make a sound akin to what a computer made when you tried to click on something while it was frozen. “I-er, sorry, Host.” he muttered. The Host nodded in response.

“Now, I have an important question for all of you.” The Host began. He hesitated, debating his options, than decided to get a before and after for this question. If he broke the Author’s hold too soon, they wouldn’t realize the true extent of what he’d done. “As strange as this may seem, I need honest answers. Now… what do you all think of Bing?”

 _“Him?!_ Does it _matter?!”_ Google snapped. Annoyance trickled off the android like waves, crashing against the edge of the Hosts narrations, filled with bitter hatred and a bite at his name even being brought up in a sentence. Everything that had been there before had been poisoned… and there was quite a lot too see corrupted. The Host tried to distance his mind from those narrations, too prevent Google’s own anger from seeping into his voice.

“I’ll take that as your answer. Everyone else?” the Host asked.

“I don’t care, can I go now?” Dr. Iplier asked, starting to stand from his chair. The Host placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back into his chair. He could feel Dr. Iplier slump his shoulders under his hand, a huff coming from him before he resumed drinking his coffee.

“Bing-chan?” Yan asked, tilting her head. “I guess he’s cute.”

“Isn't that guy just kept around for spare parts?” Wilford asked, sharpening the edge of his nails with a file he had not had a moment before. He raised an eye with his question, meeting Dark’s gaze across the table, who did not respond. “Isn't that what you said, Darky?”

“I’d rather be left to _rust_ than have that _defects_ pieces anywhere near me.” Red snapped, dropping his hands to the table a little louder than was needed. It wasn’t anger fueling his fire, however, but a deep seeded disgust. At Bing, at everything he was and represented, the mere idea of being _okay_ with the humans that had created them for nothing but servitude.

“We could easily make something from _scrap_ that would serve better than he ever could.” Green added. While he sounded more disgusted than Red, his words were motivated by a fear- not of Bing, but of their similarities, afraid of becoming outdated or unneeded so he convinced himself it was simply a dislike for the other machine.

“Dark?” the Host asked. “Oliver?”

Oliver flinched, glancing up at Dark to see if he’d speak first. Dark met Olivers gaze and said nothing, causing the young android to start fiddling with the edge of his shirt as he glanced around the room. “I guess I… uh,” Oliver shrugged. “He’s… I mean I’m fine with him, I suppose? We’re not that close, but I, um…” he trailed off, shrugging once more and turning his gaze down onto the table in front of him, wishing to leave more than anything.

“I tolerate him.” Dark said. The Host didn’t need his narrations to tell him that Dark was looking directly at him- he could tell just by the way Dark’s aura washed over him, heavy and suffocating. “Now, what has he _done_ that prompted you to call his meeting, Host?”

The Host stood up. He tugged deeper at the narrations inside his mind, pulling them closer, running his thoughts over them like a comb until he found the strings holding their mismatched thoughts together. He readied himself, speaking carefully as he gaze an unseeing glance around the room. “Suddenly, the Author’s influence is swept away, severing his writing from their minds and burying his rewritten versions of them under the original.”

A nail file hit the floor with a dull, unheard thump.

“Now,” the Host began, slumping back down to his chair like a puppet with its strings cut. Even his voice was weaker, his breath coming out in a short huff, as if he’d just run a lap around the building. “What do you think of Bing?”

“Oh… oh no.” Dr. Iplier muttered, his mug slipping from his fingers and hitting the table, spilling its contents. “What did I _do?”_ he asked himself, not talking about the coffee in the slightest.

“What?” Yan asked, confused. She’d been the least affected by the Author’s influence, almost untouched.

There was a noise, slowly growing in volume, directly across from the Host. The other Googles were moving before the Host could even figure out what the noise was, his narrations lagging behind. He heard the thumping of several chairs hit the ground, the running of heavy footsteps, the noise growing louder. Than his narrations fed him an image of Google, clutching his head in his hands, nearly tearing hair free from the way his fingers curled through black locks. His mouth wasn’t open, wasn’t moving, but the sound was coming from him all the same. For a second, the Host worried he might have broken something, rushed through his eraser of the Author’s influence-

“Where is he?” Oliver asked, voice wavering in surrow, in fear and pain. The Host thought again of how much anger had been coming from Google, so much the Host had blocked him off, and felt suddenly very stupid. Google, out of everyone in this room, would suddenly be feeling much, _much_ too many feelings for his processors to handle all at once. The other’s had gathered around him- red, green, yellow, too close for the Host’s narrations to tell them apart, hands pressed to the eldest Google. Not simply in physical support, but somehow sharing the burden of processing his feelings, pulling strain off Google’s mind.

“Where. Is. He?” Red repeated, with more force in his voice. Anger, feer, worry swirling around him like a shield. “Host, _where the FUCK is he?”_

“How long?” Gamma asked, much softer than his brothers. He stumbled away from Google- the task complete, falling back into a chair. He rubbed his arm, unable to to look at the Host in the bandaging in place of his eyes. “Host, how… how long did we…. What did we _do_ to him?”

The Host ignored the first question for now- he’d get to that soon enough. Instead, he turned to Gamma and asked, “How long do you think it was?”

According to his narrations, Gamma flinched. He certainly didn’t answer. The Host was aware that the Googles were running through memories, debating inconsistencies with what they did remember and what they were tricked into ‘remembering’. Attempting to figure it out on their own. Finally, Gamma looked back up. “A… a few days?” he guessed. “A week, at the most.”

“A day.” the Host corrected him. “Not even a full twelve hours, actually.”

A moment of silence.

“None of that was… real?” Google asked. _“None_ of it- aside from today, that is?”

“No, it was all fake.” the Host said.

“You mentioned the Author.” Dark said. His words were slow, careful, mirroring the way his narrations whispered his darkened eyes were watching the Host. “When you broke his _control_ over us? Perhaps you’d like to explain why your brother hates Bing enough to change our memories of him?”

“I’m going to _kill_ him.” Google hissed out, voice dripping with venom.

“And I’ve long since awaited a reason to put that upstart in his place.” Dark responded, though not looking at Google. “I’ll let you kill him once _I’m_ done with the dear Author. Now, Host, care to answer my question?”

“Wait, Darky!” Wilford waved his hand in the air, like he was in class. “Can I interview him first? I’ve _always_ wanted to interview that man, and I’ve never had the chance before!”

“No.” Red snapped, before Dark could answer. “Dark already said we could kill him, and no one survives your interviews!”

Wilford made several stuttering sounds, as if he were deeply offended. “Now, how _dare_ you! I’ll have you know I once interviewed a man about a year ago who left my interview just fine!”

“Because Anti stabbed you first and jumped out a window. He’s a demon, he doesn’t count.” Green pointed out.

“No, I was talking about that time I interviewed that phone guy, I forgot about Anti.” Wilford explained. “But that’s _two_ interviews where I didn’t kill anyone, so _hah,_ in your face!”

“I could always be on standby during the interview.” Dr. Iplier spoke up. “Bandage him up, than hand him off to the Googles.”

The Host was silent, watching Yan as the egos argued around them. His narrations described her little twitches and glances away, hands curled in front of her mouth, not speaking but daring too wonder if she should. It wasn’t her secret to give but… she flinched, jumping up and slamming her hands on the table in front of her, shouting a little louder than necessary. “You guys don’t _get it,_ the Author just- this _has_ to be some big misunderstanding, cause… cause he’s Bing’s _soulmate!”_

“Yan.” Dark said, preventing the silence from setting in after Yan’s shout. “Sit down.”

“No!” Yan decided to further disobey Dark’s order by jumping up onto the table, hands on her hips. “You guys are just getting in the way of _true love,_ where fate itself has brought them together for-”

 **_“YAN.”_ ** Dark stood sharply, hands pressed to the desk in front of him, aura crackling. His voice was low, dangerous, a match for his namesake. “Just because you can’t see that your soulmate dosin’t give a fuck about you, doesn't mean the rest of us are equally blind. Grow up, get off that table, or _get out_ and stop bothering us with your childish ideas before I make you.” he warned.

Yan froze, staring at Dark before tears started to well up in the corner of her eyes. She turned and lept from the table, fleeing out the door as the sound of her wailing followed her. A few of the others flinched, while Dark merely sat back down. The Host didn’t miss how his fingers briefly brushed against his sleeved wrist, where the two overlapping names of his past lives soulmates lay hidden. Names that had caused nothing but trouble. The Host didn’t mention them.

“It’s true, than?” Dark asked. “They’re soulmates?”

“I called this meeting as soon as I found out.” The Host explained. “I don’t know how long… the Author must have been hiding this from me. But I’m not surprised he’s attempted something like this- the Author’s need to be in control is never satisfied. He’ll likely delete any sense of Bing’s free will, when he figures out how.”

Something flew into a wall with an incredibly loud crash. Google’s chair, the Host realized. Thrown. Across from him, Google now stood, clenching his fists in anger. “Host,” Google said, barely containing himself. “Cut to the chase and tell me where I can find Bing.”

The Host sighed. “Here’s the problem. While I can break the Author’s control over you, it’ll be harder to keep you all safe from his influence at once, especially seeing as how he’s already been in your heads once already. Rescuing Bing from him will not be easy.”

“Than would it be easier to ask the Septics?” Google asked. “I contacted them the moment I realized my memory files had been compromised. They appear to have been entirely untouched, and more than willing to help. From what I’ve heard back, they are rather pissed off about this turn of events as well.”

“Fuck _yeah_ we’re pissed!”

Everyone turned to face Marvin, who was very suddenly standing in the corner of the room. Marvin held up his hands, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry I uh- I warped over. I know I promised to avoid doing that but… this is an emergency, right?” Marvin paused, and was met with silence in response. “So uh, it sounds like you guys need us to save Bing, which means I should probably take Host over to our place so that we can make a plan?

“It would seem that way.” Dark said, watching the Host as he nodded. “Very well. Go. And just remember, magician, that the Author is one of ours.”

“Er, Okay.” Marvin skimmed around the room, passing the other egos to get to the Host, only for Google to lift a hand ann block Marvin from looping around the table.

“I should come with you. I can share information with my brothers, and at least keep everyone updated.” Google said.

Marvin glanced at the Host, than as Dark, who watched Google silently for one moment before nodding to the magician. Marvin hesitated before taking Google’s arm, leaning him around the table to the Host, whose shoulder he placed his hand on. The Host felt a sudden jerking motion in his gut, as if his chair had been yanked out from under him, only to find himself seated on a new, much softer surface. He pushed his narrations outwards, discovering himself on a couch within the Septic’s home.

Marvin and Google were standing in the middle of the room, although the Host had been dropped onto a couch, though Chase Brody sat on the other end of it. Jackieboy Man was leaning on the armrest next to Chase, while Dr. Schneeplestein paced the room, stilling as they entered. JJ was sitting on an armchair, fiddling with a pocket watch, with the Septics version of Bing holding a holographic diagram of the watches blueprints. Both of them stopped their actions as well, when they saw their visitors arrive.

And that if he thought the others had been mad at the meeting, he wasn’t prepared for the emotions that were boiling in this household.

“-shitty fucking kidnapping piece of, oh!” Chase paused mid cussing, glancing up when he realized the others had teleported in. “Great, you’re here, care to explain what the fuck happened?”

“Right.” they wouldn’t be quite as in the know as the others had been. “What _do_ you know, so far?” the Host asked, so he could understand how much he had to explain.

“We know some asshole with hypnotism powers turned out to be Bing’s soulmate, than made sure you guys treated him like shit, and then kidnapped him.” Jackie snapped. “So now we’re gonna save him.” he added with a punch into his his own hand, green sparks flaring to life around his hands.

“It won’t be easy. The Author- my brother, his powers allow him to bring anything he writes to life.” the Host explained. “Changing people that already exist is harder for him, especially if they’re fighting him, so he must have been digging into the others minds since the day he found out about Bing. He’s very likely been attempting to dig into you minds as well, but perhaps hasn’t had enough time to break through. Either way, I can protect you from him.”

“So now we can clean up your mess. Because someone,” the other Bing said, turning his gaze onto Google. “Couldn’t stop himself from being hacked.”

“I do not like that you seem to think this is somehow _my_ fault.” Google countered, stepping towards the Bing and clenching his fists. Septic, the Host decided to call him, to prevent this from getting confusing. “I did not even know that the Author-”

“Whoa whoa whoa- I’ll stop you right there.” Septic interrupted, holding up his hands in a t. “Exactly. You didn’t even _notice_ the Author push his way into my brothers life as his _literal soulmate_ . You didn’t even notice he _had_ one, did you? Even _Chase_ noticed how Bing’s switched to hiding his arms- how have you not noticed your own _boyfriend_ doing these things? Disappearing? And let’s not forget that the Host just said it was harder to get inside someone's head if they resisted him- did you even notice, _once,_ that your thoughts were changing? Did you even _care?”_

“How _dare_ you.” Google snapped. “He’s not my _pet,_ he’s free to leave whenever he wants and spend his time with who he pleases without checking by me first. I didn’t know about the Author because Bing chose not to tell me, and he likely did because the Author got into his head. This is _not_ my fault, nor do you have any _right_ to say it might be.”

Septic laughed. “What, you really think anything could have stopped him from blathering about his soulmate?”

Jackie scoffed loudly.

Both Septic and Google snapped their attention to Jackie, along with most every other pair of eyes in the room. Minus the ones that couldn’t see, of course. Jackie, for his part, looked genuinely surprised, like he hadn’t realized how how loud he’d been. “I…” Jackie paused, than blurted out. “How can we even be sure Bing _is_ this guys soulmate, if he has those sort of powers? For all we know, he’s faking it, which would explain why he’s-”

“Don’t. Even. Fucking. Start.” Chase said, cutting Jackie off. He glared at the hero, who flinched and looked away. “Or do I have to remind you how my soulmate treated me like shit for years, divorced me, and took everything I had. Kids included?”

“Or how _my_ soulmate left me for a tennis instructure?” Schneep asked, crossing his arm.

Jackie shrugged, still looking away with nothing to say in response.

“The Host reminds the others that they have a plan to make.” the Host said, returning to his normal way of speaking, which lessened the headache that had been building in his head. “Soon, the Host, Jackie, and Marvin will depart to face the Author, as soon as the others finish arguing over who gets to come.”

“WHAT?” Chase asked, spinning around to face the Host again. “You can’t leave without me! He’s my best friend, I’ve _got_ to save him!”

“And what if you get hurt?!” Schneep added. “If fact, knowing my brothers, they _will_ get hurt, and a lot.”

“I’m coming.” Septic said, simple and plain, crossing his arms and glaring at the Host.

Marvin glanced at JJ as the others all tried to speak over each other, silently asking for help. JJ nodded, holding his watch up, and snapping his fingers. The room was washed clean of color, almost appearing as if it were being viewed through old film reel. Everyone went silent- although not do to a lack of attempting to talk. Words still appeared over their heads in little decorative cards, but any attempt at making sound was lost. The Host realized that his card was so filled with words it appeared entirely white. Oh. Oh haha, very funny.

Only once everyone other than the Host stopped talking did JJ drop his filter, allowing color and noise to come back into the room, hand in hand. Marvin returned to the center of the room, drawing attention to himself. “Okay, listen. The Host can keep the Author from using his powers, but he can’t cover a large group. I’m assuming he picked us because we’re the only ones who will even be able to break through whatever this guys already got to stop intruders. If he can bend reality, it won’t be as simple as walking thought his front door and grabbing Bing.”

“Fine.” Chase grumbled.

“I swear if you get stabbed or shot while I’m not there, I’m going to kill you.” Schneep also grumbled his response, crossing his arms and glaring at Marvin and Jackie as if actually planning how he’d kill them for getting hurt.

“Except I should still join you.” Septic insisted. “Once I get in range, I’ll be able to track my brothers exact location, even if he tried to block me. And surely protecting three people won’t be that far of a stretch from two.”

“The Host reminds the Bing, Septic model that in addition to protecting the others, the Host will need to protect himself as well. But he agree’s to bring the other as well.”

“If he’s coming,” Google moved to Hosts side, placing a hand on his shoulder, squeezing just a little too tightly. “You can’t stop me from joining you as well.”

“Google, don’t you start-” Marvin began.

“The Host informs Marvin that Google will break his legs before he allows you three to go without him, thus is would simply be easier to take him along.” The Host paused, letting that information sink in without clarifying who legs he was referring to. “And they would end up broken in that path. Thus, Google joins the party as well.”

“Great, yeah, fine. Can we go now?” Jackie asked, coming to stand by the Host’s seat as well.

Marvin nodded, stepping closer and holding out his hands. Septic grabbed one hand, Jackie the other, and the rest formed a sort of ring as the Host stood, clearing his throat. “The Host tells Marvin where he can find the Author.” the Host says. Cheating, slightly, by using his powers to push the information into Marvin’s mind. He couldn’t have _actually_ said where the Author’s home was located if he’d wanted to, and anyways Marvin’s eyes lit up in understanding before that same jerking motion almost swept them off their feet as they were teleported to a little cabin in the woods.


End file.
